Road Rage: Part One

Kingsmarkham is split down the middle. The planned bypass would take the congestion and the exhaust fumes out of the town, but it would put tarmac and heavy traffic straight through a stretch of countryside people genuinely love. Feelings are running high on both sides. And the argument is already loud when a young German tourist disappears from outside a pub. When her decomposing body is found, nobody can say whether the crime is tied to the campaign or to something much more personal.

Wexford is running the inquiry on very little sleep. He is about to become a grandfather, which should be pure good news, except that he has to hold the job together at the same time. Dora has joined the anti-bypass campaign, so the argument over the road is now sitting at his own breakfast table. The protests escalate from sit-ins to kidnappings, and the police come to believe a militant group of environmental extremists is behind them. Then the case turns personal in the worst way. Dora is taken on the day his daughter gives birth.

George Baker and Ruth Rendell wrote it together, and Bruce MacDonald directed. The first part went out on 8 November 1998. George Baker plays D.C.I. Reg Wexford, with Louie Ramsay as Dora, Christopher Ravenscroft as Det. Insp. Burden and Isobel Middleton as Det. Sgt. Malahyde. Jack Klaff plays King of the Wood, also known as Conrad Tarling, Lex van Delden is Herr Ranke, Lynne Wilmot and Fiona Welburn play Freya and Myrna, Diane Keen is Jenny Burden and Ian Bartholomew takes Stanley Trotter.

What makes the first part work is the squeeze. Wexford cannot walk away from the case to look after his family, and he cannot pretend the case is just a case when the campaign has reached into his own house. He keeps his cool through all of it, which is the point. The title says road rage, but the anger here is about something older and harder to name than traffic.