Lazaretto

The whispers about Cowley General say one of its wards is cursed, and the show spends a whole episode proving the whispers right. Morse starts with the death of an elderly Oxford resident, Mrs Zacharides, who appears to have gone naturally. Then the star witness against the Matthews gang, Terence Bakewell, is admitted from remand, and Morse is told to act as his bodyguard at the hospital.

Before he can even leave the station, Bright collapses in his office with a perforated ulcer. On the ward, a regular patient named Mr Talbot tells Morse that Bed 10 has become infamous for unexplained deaths. An armed intruder tries to reach Bakewell; Morse intercepts him and gives chase. Bakewell is moved into the vacant Bed 10 as a precaution, and the next morning the staff find him dead, despite him having appeared to be recovering.

Trawling back through the history of Bed 10, Morse discovers that Mr Zacharides, who died in that very bed six months earlier, was murdered. Two cases, one thread, and the killer is still close. The episode ends with Bright, fresh from surgery, being wheeled into the vacant Bed 10, and it takes a while for the shiver to wear off.

Russell Lewis wrote it, Börkur Sigþórsson directed. Shaun Evans is Morse, Roger Allam is DI Fred Thursday. Glen Davies plays Burt Talbot, Sarah Winter is Staff Nurse Jo-Beth Mills, Robert Wilfort is Lester Fagen, Morgan Jones is Lyle Capper, Celine Buckens is Student Nurse Daisy Bennett, Ciara Charteris Nunn is Nurse Flora Byron, Phoebe Nicholls is Caroline Bryce-Morgan, and David Yelland is Sir Merlyn Chubb.

The hospital setting is used superbly, all polished corridors and closed doors, and the idea of a ward where death keeps visiting becomes genuinely chilling. Morse's role as bodyguard keeps him pinned in one place, which suits an episode built on creeping dread rather than chase scenes.

A dense week inside hospital walls, and the confined setting does what it should: it keeps everyone close, and the dread closer.