Vanity Dies Hard: Part Three

The final part of the story arrives with its suspicions fully grown. Alice Fielding's best friend has disappeared, and the news that breaks the case open is delivered by Dr Harry Blunden: Nesta was having an affair with Andrew, Alice's own husband. Andrew denies it furiously, insisting he hated the woman, and Alice accepts his explanation. But she is more convinced than ever that someone is trying to poison her.

The evidence, when it comes, is the sort that belongs in a classic mystery. Alice notices that the typewriter in Andrew's study is the same machine used to type the letters she received from Nesta, and suddenly Harry's claim looks less like gossip and more like the truth. The house, which has been closing in on her for three parts, finally becomes unbearable. Alice runs out of it in fear for her life, straight into the path of the killer, and the conclusion that follows is inevitable in the way the best endings are: you can see it coming and still can't look away.

Eleanor David's Alice has carried the story on nerve alone, and Mark Frankel's Andrew keeps his mask on until the last possible moment. The supporting cast is strong throughout: Leslie Phillips' Justin Whittaker, Leonard Preston's Hugo, Melanie Kilburn's Jackie, Joanna Kanska's Pernille Madsen, Peter Egan's Harry Blunden, Rebecca Lacey's Daphne Feast, Anne Jameson's Mrs Johnson and Michael Parkhouse's Vicar. Julian Bond and Ruth Rendell wrote it, and Alan Grint directed.

The episode ends the way the whole story has been pointing: with a woman who trusted the wrong people learning the truth the hard way. The typewriter did what no confession could, and the flight from the house delivers Alice into the confrontation she has been dreading. Vanity dies hard, and so does the story's central deception.