The Bogeyman

Dempsey becomes obsessed with catching a tough guy called Keith Lymon, and Makepeace thinks she knows why: the two men are different sides of the same coin. It is the kind of psychological gloss the show usually leaves to other dramas, and it gives this episode a weight the punch-ups alone would not provide. It rounded off the second series in November 1985, and the show chose to end the run on character rather than spectacle.

Ranald Graham wrote it, Tony Wharmby directed. Nick Brimble, a few years from playing Little John in Robin Hood, is a properly imposing Lymon, and you can see why Dempsey cannot let him go. John Blythe's Rose, Timothy Block's Miller, Tony Osoba's Chas Jarvis, Phil Murray's Phil and Graham Stagg's Dave fill out the investigation, with Suzie Cerys's secretary and Clive Wood among the guests. Ray Smith's Spikings hovers in the background as he always does, but this is really a two-hander about Dempsey and the one man he cannot stop chasing. The guest list is a modest one, and the hour is better for keeping the focus tight.

Makepeace's reading of her partner is the heart of it. She watches him the way she has watched him all along, filing away the parts he does not know he is showing, and the suggestion that Dempsey is chasing a mirror rather than a monster is the most interesting thing the episode does. The best scenes are the quiet stand-offs between the two men, and the episode trusts the audience to see what Makepeace keeps pointing out.

It is a quieter, more reflective hour, the sort that lets the two leads act instead of just react, and the show is better for having it. Series three would open with the two-part 'The Burning', a much bigger, brassier affair, which makes this small, close-focused hour feel like a held breath before the storm.