Put on by Cunning

A world-famous flautist is murdered, and the case lands on Wexford at the worst possible angle: his own family. His daughter has recently returned, and he cannot shake the suspicion that she had something to do with the killing. The suspicion curdles into obsession. He becomes convinced that the woman claiming to be his daughter is an imposter, and proving it starts to matter more to him than solving the murder itself.

The episode takes Wexford a long way from Kingsmarkham to chase that conviction. He gets permission to travel as far afield as the United States and France, and the international sweep gives the story a properly displaced feel, a detective working a case that keeps pulling him away from everything familiar. The music world provides the backdrop: Sir Manuel Carmargue, played by the great Rossano Brazzi, Dinah Sternhold in Janet Maw's portrayal, and a flautist played by Stephen Solloway. The Rector, Tim Meats, Ted Ricks from Malcolm Raeburn, Muriel Hicks from Myra McFadyen and John Fassbender from Vincenzo Nicoli all orbit the enquiry, with Louie Ramsay's Dora holding the home front.

Trevor Preston wrote it, and Sandy Johnson directed, and the result is a taut piece of work about a detective doing his job at the expense of his own family. The central suspicion is painful to watch: a father interrogating his own flesh and blood, certain that the person at his table is a stranger. George Baker plays the obsession with unsettling conviction, and Christopher Ravenscroft's Burden looks on with the expression of a man watching his boss walk off a cliff.

It went out on Christmas Eve 1990, which gives the whole affair an extra twist of seasonal discomfort. The episode asks whether a father can recognise his own daughter, and the asking is more uncomfortable than the answer.