The Great Lochdubh Salt Robbery

Two apparently unconnected mysteries land on Hamish Macbeth's desk at once, which in Lochdubh counts as a busy week. First, a sizeable quantity of table salt has vanished from Rory Campbell's general store, the kind of haul that suggests either a practical joke or a motive far beyond making chips. Nobody in the village has ever needed that much salt, and Rory is not the sort of man who mislays his stock. Second, Big Geordie Robb has dropped out of village life. Geordie is a bully by reputation and by habit, and there is a missing wife somewhere in the background of the case.

And the two puzzles stay separate for everyone except Hamish. His superiors see coincidence. He notices the pattern instead, and the pattern eventually unpicks both mysteries. The connection, when it clicks, is the sort that makes you want to rewind and watch the clues land. It is the kind of quiet, stubborn outwitting Hamish does best, and the episode lets him earn it slowly rather than handing it over in a flash of inspiration.

Daniel Boyle wrote the script and Nicholas Renton directed, with Robert Carlyle anchoring the whole thing as Hamish. Around him the village gathers in fine form: Ralph Riach's TV John, Jon Croft as Malkie Clunie, Barbara Rafferty's Agnes Meldrum, Rab Christie as Jimmy Soutar and Stuart McGugan as Barney Meldrum. Kenny Ryan plays Big Geordie Robb, and Julia Wallace plays his wife Alice, the two people most affected by the disappearance and the only ones taking it seriously. Jimmy Yuill appears as Lachlan McCrae, John Grieve as Whisky Bob, and the rest of the village drifts through the frame. The episode aired in March 1995.

It is a gentle opening, an episode that trusts the rhythms of the place rather than the noise of the plot, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. The salt robbery is a good joke and a good mystery at once, and the show never rushes either.