Fraudulently Uttered

An elderly tea-lady accused of stealing large sums of money from her employer sounds like the kind of case the paperwork could sort out on its own. Doris Latham is arrested, the amounts are big, and the odd title of the episode, Fraudulently Uttered, is a clue that the straightforward version will not survive contact with the facts. What the hour really wants to know is how a woman like this ends up sitting across from Inspector Jean Darblay, and what the money was for.

The inquiry fans out across the station. Detective Chief Inspector Jim Logan keeps an eye on the case from above, Detective Sergeant Dave Melchett and Detective Constable Ron Davies do the legwork, and the investigation keeps returning to the same few names: Jimmy Harker, Edward Bass, Arthur Hill. At the centre sits Patricia Hayes' Doris, and the episode gives her room to be more than a sad headline. The officers circle one question the whole way through: whether she is being played for a fool or playing one herself.

Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, Derek Lister directed. Stephanie Turner is Jean Darblay, David Hargreaves her husband Tom, with Tony Caunter as Logan, Noel Collins as Sergeant George Parrish, Geoffrey Larder as Melchett and Anthony Milner as Davies. Ray Smith, Dicken Ashworth and Arthur Kelly fill out the world around the charge sheet.

It is a modest instalment, the sort of quiet case these early episodes specialised in, and it benefits from being allowed to stay small. No gunplay, no car chases, nothing that would make a trailer. Just a community being asked an uncomfortable question about one of its own, and an older woman whose story turns out to have more corners than the arrest sheet suggests.

The answer, when it comes, leaves everyone a little less sure of themselves. That was the show's early habit, and a good one: it made you sit with the awkward bits.