Picture of Innocence

A photograph of Barnaby in a passionate embrace with a woman who is not his wife is put on display, and shortly afterwards the woman's estranged husband, photographer Lionel Bell, is found strangled. It is the kind of week that tests a marriage and a career at once. The photograph has been arranged, but it does not look that way to the village. The DCI finds himself at the centre of his own murder inquiry, under virtual house arrest while the case is worked around him, and there is a quiet, uncomfortable pleasure in watching the man who usually asks the questions have to answer them.

Two rival photographers are dead, and the picture puts Barnaby firmly in the frame. DS Ben Jones carries the legwork, Dr George Bullard examines with his customary care, and Joyce has to sit with the knowledge that the village has now seen the photograph. The rivalries between the dead men run deep, and the deaths carry the whiff of professional jealousy. Around the edges move Steve Bright, played by Andrew Tiernan, Eddie Carfax, played by Adrian Scarborough, and the Madrigals, Headley and Seb, played by Peter Eyre and Martin Hutson. Lionel Bell is played by Nigel Anthony, and Martin Spellman by Richard Lintern.

Andrew Payne and Caroline Graham wrote the episode, with Richard Holthouse directing. The show rarely puts its own detective in the dock, and the novelty carries the story a long way. But Barnaby under house arrest is a sight worth waiting for, and the episode knows it. Jones suddenly has to manage his own boss as a suspect, and Hughes plays the awkwardness of that very well.

What sticks is how quickly a single image can unravel a reputation. Barnaby has spent years immune to village gossip; here he learns what it feels like to be its subject, and the episode makes good use of his discomfort. A photograph is innocent enough until somebody decides otherwise, and that idea keeps the mystery ticking right to the end.