Reason for Leaving

Reason for Leaving sends the sixth season out at Christmas, which in Hartley means theft. A gang is stealing Christmas trees, and the crime wave turns to tragedy in the run-up to the holiday. Stealing a Christmas tree is a strange crime, petty and mean at once, and the episode treats it accordingly. Underneath the investigation sits Longton's quieter reckoning: her promotion bid has failed. And she is weighing what comes next. The season's last hour, and it does not let anyone off lightly. The trees are the smallest of stakes and the story makes them matter.

The festive crime wave draws in the full force: Sergeant Joseph Beck, Sergeant George Parrish, PC Brian Kelleher, PC Danny Sparks and WPC Sheila Saunders (Julie Foulds), with John Rowe's Chief Superintendent Bellway taking the strategic view and Edward Peel's Detective Chief Inspector Mark Perrin running the case. Bellway's presence suggests the case has climbed the ranks, whether Longton likes it or not. The tragedy gives the thefts a weight the town was not expecting, and the investigation tightens. Frankie Jordan's Yvonne and Peter Childs's Cyril Vowles round out the town's December.

Don Webb wrote it, Colin Cant 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, John Rowe as Bellway, Frankie Jordan as Yvonne and Peter Childs as Cyril Vowles.

The double strand works because both halves are about loss: stolen trees and a spoiled season, and a career that stalled. The show refuses to give Longton an easy answer to her own question, and the final episode lets her sit with it. The title carries the real question: everybody in Hartley has a reason for leaving, and Longton is trying to find hers. It is a Christmas episode with very little tinsel in it, which is a choice the show makes deliberately. A fitting end to the season, sadder and wiser than it started.