Kissing the Gunner's Daughter: Part Four

The final part of the story, broadcast on the 6th of December 1992, finds Wexford working alone. He has been going it solo through the thick of the case, and Mike Burden has been doing his own quiet assembling on the other side of the enquiry. When the two sets of pieces come together, the outcome is a considerable surprise to everyone involved, which is exactly what a four-part story owes its audience.

The episode has the confidence of a conclusion that has done its homework. Matthew Jacobs wrote it, and Mary McMurray directed, and the resolution draws on everything the story has planted: the sergeant's death at the bank robbery, the blood at Tancred House, the flowers with their bizarre messages, the blackmailer in the tree. Wexford's solo work and Burden's parallel efforts converge on the same answer, and the surprise works because the pieces were there all along, waiting to be arranged. Matthew Jacobs' script keeps its reveals for exactly the right moments, and Mary McMurray's direction treats the horror with the same restraint the story has earned. By the end, every thread from part one has been picked up and tied off.

George Baker and Christopher Ravenscroft carry the closing hour between them, with Deborah Poplett's Sheila, Louie Ramsay's Dora, John Warnaby's Augustus Casey, Angela Crow's Mrs Griffin, David Jackson's Mr Griffin, James Ryland's Andy Griffin, Charles Collingwood's Restaurant Manager and Rosalind Thomas' Charge Nurse completing the ensemble.

The ending lands with the weight of a long case properly closed. Wexford's obsession with Daisy, the killer's theatrical cruelty, the small town's first brush with a serial investigation: all of it resolves in a conclusion that surprises the detectives as much as the viewer. The Gunner's Daughter has been kissed, and the case is done, and the surprise lingers long after the credits.