Episode 3

DS Steve Arnott is convinced DCI Tony Gates had a hand in Jackie Laverty's disappearance. It is the kind of suspicion that would be easier to drop, but Arnott holds on to it. With Kate Fleming's help, the anti-corruption team sets about cornering Gates and forcing him to admit his part in covering up Jackie's crimes. The trap has to be built carefully, because a man like Gates doesn't confess to anything without a fight. Gates is a man with a lot to lose, and the team knows it.

The episode is a tight, uncomfortable affair about departmental loyalty and where it breaks down. Every officer involved has a stake in the outcome, from Hastings watching from the top to Morton and Cottan watching from the middle. The questioning of Gates becomes a contest of nerve, and the show is patient with it. What the team wants is an admission. What Gates wants is to walk out of the room with his reputation intact, and those two things cannot both happen.

Jed Mercurio wrote it, David Caffrey directed. Martin Compston and Lennie James carry the central clash, with Vicky McClure's Fleming working quietly in support. Craig Parkinson's Cottan, Neil Morrissey's Morton, Faraz Ayub's Kapoor, Adrian Dunbar's Hastings, Alison Lintott's Bennett, Heather Craney's Prior and Gina McKee's Laverty complete the roster, and Jackie's absence from the action is felt in every line of the investigation.

There is something satisfying about a procedural that cares as much about the people doing the investigating as about the crime. This one shows how genuine partnership can form inside a team built on suspicion. But it also shows how slowly an admission can be dragged out of a man who does not want to give one. The episode earns its tension the old-fashioned way: by sitting people in rooms and letting them talk.