Season 08 Episode 02

The episode opens seconds after the last one: Will running to a telephone box to call an ambulance and returning to kneel beside the man he has hit. Geordie and Larry arrive and find Will sitting by the body, and Geordie's irritation about the road changes when he sees who the driver is. The victim is John Mitchell, 30, of Barton, with a Mirage Club ticket on him. The motorcycle's speedometer has stopped at 78 mph, which is the figure DCI Elliott Wallace uses against him.

Will is interviewed by Geordie and Wallace. He says he was not concentrating because he and Bonnie had argued, and that the man was running from the verge, and he also says the speedometer has been unreliable. Wallace tells him he is looking at a decade in prison, and Geordie accuses him of making it personal, which it is, since Will had an affair with Wallace's fiancee. Geordie arrests Will for causing death by reckless driving and holds him overnight. Word reaches the vicarage, and Mrs Chapman, Jack and Cathy look after Ernie, who writes Will a letter asking whether he might call him dad.

Jackie Mitchell, the widow, tells Geordie that they went dancing at the Mirage Club and that she left alone after an argument because John was drunk. Geordie and Larry walk the footpath between the club and the Mitchells' house, looking for whatever John was running from, and find a second body: Milton Bedwin, beaten to death. Milton had also been at the Mirage Club. The club is run by two brothers, Ray Mansfield, who is aggressive, and Paul, known as Paulie, and they say Milton was a friend thrown out for fighting, and that the club has got worse since Leonard's halfway house opened nearby. Dot Parsons, Ray's girlfriend, worked with Milton at a laundry and says she put him on the number three bus home at about half past eight.

Wallace orders Larry to bring Leonard and every resident of the halfway house in for questioning. Leonard is furious, he and Larry argue, and Larry insults him. Geordie asks Leonard to talk to Will, because he cannot find the words himself, and Leonard's advice is to ask what Will would say to a stranger in the same position. Will's answer is that he would take their hand, listen and show them pity, which is what Leonard then does for him.

Jackie is shown Milton's body and says he is not the man John fought with. Larry finds that Ray Mansfield has convictions for assault and grievous bodily harm and a history with a knife, and Jackie identifies him as the man who hit John. The fight was over Dot, because John had made a play for her. Geordie confronts Dot, who had told her boyfriend, and Paul backs Ray's claim that neither left the club. Miss Scott identifies the lie: the last bus leaves at seven, so Dot could not have put Milton on an 8.30 bus. Geordie searches the laundry and finds a shirt with faint bloodstains on it, the tablecloths Ray had asked Dot about, and Ray is arrested for Milton's murder. Miss Scott also lets Will into the morgue to pray over John, against the rules, and Jackie interrupts, prays with him, and tells him they had wanted children and that John needed to be a dad. Will tells her he is the man who killed her husband, and she slaps him. Larry is still hostile, and Miss Scott learns from him that his mother has just died of a heart attack and tells him his mother would be prouder of him if he stopped threatening people.

Ray does not resist arrest, which is not his habit, and Paul walks into the station and confesses. He had gone with Ray, Dot and Milton to frighten John after the fight. Ray pulled a knife, Paul intervened and John got away, Milton mocked him for it, and Paul punched him once in the stomach and killed him. The blood Milton coughed up went over Paul's shirt, which Dot took to the laundry. Ray had been protecting his brother. Paul asks Geordie to tell Milton's family he is sorry and asks to speak to Will, who tells him that God still loves him and that there is always darkness before the dawn. Will is released without charge. Geordie produces a photograph taken weeks earlier of Ernie sitting on Will's motorcycle, in which the speedometer is already stuck at 78, a villager had seen Will riding at a steady pace that evening, the spot where John was hit is a blind corner, and John was running. Wallace drops the case without a word. Leonard is released and Larry apologises to him for the names, then warns him that Geordie is retiring and will not be there to protect him much longer. Will goes home, telephones Bonnie, and receives Ernie's letter.

The episode solves the accident by a photograph of a child sitting on a motorbike, which is the plainest possible answer to a case the police force has spent two days building around a number on a dial. The bus timetable is the second lie undone by a printed schedule in two episodes, and the laundered shirt is the kind of evidence a laundry exists to destroy. Paul's confession is the better scene of the two, because the hard brother is frightened and the quiet one is not.