Season 08 Episode 04

The halfway house is full. The residents are Mikey Ellis, who is smooth and popular; Judith Evans, who flirts with Will and asks him to put a plaster on her finger; Alfie, an Italian immigrant who served three years for robbery; Keith Pruitt, who is drink-dependent and quick to violence; and Duncan Williamson, who is quiet and says he farmed during the war. Martha, the new housekeeper, has already annoyed Mrs Chapman by claiming first use of the oven.

A table-tennis match between Keith and Alfie turns into a fight and Keith punches Alfie, nearly breaking his jaw. Duncan invites Alfie outside, and the fight does not happen. Judith asks Will for a plaster, and Leonard argues that she has as much right to be there as anyone. Daniel comes in to tell Leonard about the punch and to ask Leonard to spend the night at his house, which Leonard promises to do. Alone with Will, Alfie says the guilt over his robberies, and over a woman he loved before prison, sometimes makes him want to die. He explains that they courted in secret because he was an immigrant, that he hurt her, and that she came to him saying a life must pay for a life. He takes pills to stop his mind racing and gives the bottle to Will for safekeeping, in case he cannot stop himself, and asks Will to pray with him. Will starts the prayer and stops, saying he cannot, and leaves.

Leonard and Daniel return to the house in the morning and find Keith passed out in the hallway, Daniel's camera missing, Duncan locked in his room, and Alfie dead in a shed at the back with his wrists cut. Will, who arrives moments later, tells Leonard about the conversation the night before and blames himself. Geordie does not accept the suicide. There is too little blood at the wrists, suggesting the heart had stopped pumping before the cuts were made, and a clean shovel and a blow to the back of the head suggest the method. He smells bleach in Alfie's room and finds chloroform made from bleach and alcohol. Someone knocked Alfie out upstairs, carried him to the shed and staged the death, which is not consistent with a burglary, and he concludes that one of the residents did it.

Keith was too drunk to have planned it, Duncan had been locked in his room by Keith after beating him at cards, Mikey was out with a friend he will not name and nearly passes out at the sight of blood, and Judith is missing with her bed not slept in. Geordie takes Keith in for questioning, and Leonard and Daniel have to lie about their whereabouts because homosexuality is illegal. Elliott Wallace tells Leonard that the house will soon be closed because of complaints from the neighbours. Keith explains that he drinks to forget and becomes aggressive when the forgetfulness takes too long, and he has a cobra tattoo.

Keith explains that he drinks to forget and becomes aggressive when the forgetfulness takes too long, and that SJ stands for Sanjiv Joshi, his birth name, changed on arrival; the gang, he says, was what they had to do to survive after fighting for a country that did not want them. He adds that a few days earlier he came upon Alfie threatening Judith with a knife, which gives Judith a motive, and she is the prime suspect until she is found: the house is pelted with eggs and has a window broken by a brick, and in the confusion Will catches her hiding stolen goods including Daniel's camera and Alfie's wallet. She says she was out working men as a prostitute, that she owed Alfie money and was returning the wallet as a surprise, and that the knife incident was a misunderstanding, since she tried to kiss him to get him to do something for her, and he flinched and drew a knife when she came close.

In Alfie's wallet Geordie finds a photograph of a woman and a faded newspaper clipping about her death by suicide. Alfie's record shows he was questioned over a woman's death and was sponsored to come to Britain from Italy to work on farms, and Duncan, who also worked on farms, had warned Judith against Alfie. Confronted with the fact that he has no criminal record at all, Duncan admits he came to the house because he was homeless and was planning to go back to Scotland. Mikey comes to the church and admits he lied: he has three girlfriends and was with one of them, Lucinda, on the night Alfie died, and she confirms it. Will tells Geordie he is worried Alfie's death is divine retribution for the accident and that the same will happen to him, and Geordie tells him he helps people every day, that this balances any sin, and that he must talk to somebody before the accident eats him up. Leonard tells Daniel he is disappointed in him for not supporting the halfway house, Daniel says he has devoted his life to Leonard and storms out, and Martha comes in to hand in her resignation.

Alfie worked on farms at Stanley, and there is a Stanley in Scotland as well as in England. Telephone calls establish that Duncan Williamson worked on a farm at Stanley in Scotland and had a daughter, Heather, who was the woman Alfie courted in secret. Will, returning to the house, catches the Scottish in Martha's accent and realises that Martha is Phyllida, Duncan's wife. Duncan and Phyllida waited until Leonard, Daniel, Judith and Mikey were all out, got Keith drunk, chloroformed Alfie and tried to make him confess to murdering Heather. He refused to lie, so Phyllida struck him with the shovel and they staged the death as a suicide, and she locked her husband in his room to give him an alibi. The minister at Stanley tells Will that Heather and Alfie had come to him asking to be married and he refused, knowing Duncan would never consent, and that Alfie ended the relationship a few days later and Heather killed herself the next day. Will tells Geordie he wants to deal with what has happened and tries to write to Bonnie, but cannot finish the letter. He takes two of Alfie's pills instead, and under their influence feels settled and goes to the church to pray.

The episode is the strongest of Series 8 because the killing is a family revenge staged inside a house that exists to give men a second chance, and the two people who do it are the housekeeper and her husband, the two residents nobody suspected of being related at all. The forensic detail holds it together, since a man who cuts his own wrists bleeds and a man whose heart has stopped does not, and the staged suicide is undone by something the audience has been shown. The Stanley telephone calls are the clue that joins the two countries and the two families, and the minister's account of a wedding he refused to conduct is the single most damning thing anyone says in the episode.