Shake Hands Forever: Part Two

Wexford is sure he has Angela Hathall's killer. What he cannot do is prove it. Everything he has is a hunch, and his suspect knows it, because the man starts taking visible steps to get Wexford off his back. The pressure builds until DCC Charles Griswold orders the investigation stopped and puts Wexford's job on the line. Most men would fold there. Wexford keeps a few cards up his sleeve and carries on, quietly and unofficially, which is exactly the sort of stubbornness the character is made of.

Then Nancy Lake arrives, and the episode complicates itself in a different direction. She is attractive, she takes an obvious interest in Wexford, and she sets about trying to seduce him. The case is already pulling him away from the force and his family; Nancy pulls him somewhere else entirely. It is a neat piece of pressure-cooker plotting, professional obsession and personal temptation arriving at the same moment, and Baker sells the discomfort of a man who knows exactly what is happening to him. June Ritchie plays Nancy with an easy charm that makes the seduction feel almost innocent, and the script leaves it unclear how far she would go.

The cast around him is in fine order: Christopher Ravenscroft's Burden, Tom Wilkinson's Robert Hathall, Patrick Drury's Howard Fortune, Michael Byrne as Griswold, June Ritchie's Nancy Lake, Geoffrey Beevers' Mr Aveney, Anthony Douse as the flat landlord, Louie Ramsay's Dora and Sheila Ruskin's Denise Fortune. Ruth Rendell wrote the script, and Don Leaver directed. The hour first went out in September 1988, leaving the Hathall case open in a way that makes the final part essential viewing.

The episode turns on a simple question that Rendell always asked well: what does a man do when being right costs him everything? Wexford's answer, so far, is to keep going and hope the evidence catches up. Whether Nancy Lake helps or hinders that project is a question for the next part, and the hour ends before anyone, least of all Wexford, can answer it.