Girl Talk

Girl Talk sends Inspector Kate Longton into a school, and straight into the most delicate kind of allegation: an affair between a teacher and one of his pupils. The episode treats the accusation with the weight it carries, moving slowly through the statements and the silences. But in a case like this, the reputations on both sides are part of the evidence. The title is quietly ironic: most of what matters in the episode is what nobody is saying out loud. The investigation is as much about protecting the young as about punishing the guilty.

The Stubbs family are at the centre: Elizabeth Bell's Jennifer Stubbs and Margarette Francis's Susan Stubbs, with Diana Bishop's Kathy Harding adding another layer. A school is a small world, and the allegation echoes through it before the police have even finished their first conversation. Longton works the investigation with Sergeant Joseph Beck, Sergeant George Parrish, PC Brian Kelleher and PC Danny Sparks, joined by WPC Sheila Saunders, played by Julie Foulds, and Detective Chief Inspector Mark Perrin (Edward Peel) overseeing. The police response has to be exactly right, because everything will be picked over afterwards.

Wally K. Daly wrote it, Roderick Graham directed. Anna Carteret is Kate Longton, with David Ellison as Beck, Noel Collins as Parrish, C.J. Allen as Kelleher, Mark Botham as Sparks, Edward Peel as Perrin, Julie Foulds as Sheila Saunders, Elizabeth Bell as Jennifer Stubbs, Margarette Francis as Susan Stubbs and Diana Bishop as Kathy Harding.

The episode is at its best in the messy edges: the friendships and the loyalties, the parents who do not know what to believe. It does not sensationalise the allegation, and that restraint is the point. Longton's manner here is careful without being cold, which is the balance the job demands. The episode trusts the audience to feel the discomfort without being told to. A serious hour that keeps its head, and a reminder that some questions have no clean answers.