The Dark Rider

Two families have hated each other since the English Civil War. In this county that passes for a long-standing arrangement, and lately it has turned lethal. The DeQuettevilles keep dying, and each victim sees a headless horseman before the end. Barnaby has to decide whether the old quarrel has finally gone fatal or a modern murderer is using the legend for cover.

The DeQuetteville clan is the kind of family tree that needs its own filing system: Izzy, Toby, Julian, Diana, Betty, Ludo, with Sasha Fleetwood watching from the other side of the argument. Every death arrives wrapped in the horseman story, and the Fleetwoods are happy to point at the legend and talk about curses. And Barnaby keeps his feet on the ground. The story is old; the bodies are fresh, and somebody with a pulse is choosing victims in an order that makes sense to them. Jones does the legwork while Barnaby works out who benefits from keeping the feud warm and who would rather see it buried.

The casting deserves a mention for one detail: James Callis plays both Toby and Julian DeQuetteville, which is the kind of choice that keeps an audience counting heads. Eleanor Bron's Izzy anchors the older generation, with Raquel Cassidy's Diana, Kerry Fox's Betty and William Gaunt's Ludo around her, and Natalie Mendoza's Sasha Fleetwood carrying the other family's argument. Neil Dudgeon's Barnaby and Jason Hughes's Jones do the police work, with Fiona Dolman's Sarah Barnaby and Tamzin Malleson's Kate Wilding in support. Michael Aitkens and Caroline Graham wrote it, Alex Pillai directed.

It's a satisfyingly gothic hour of television, full of old houses and older resentments, and the legend gets politely dismantled by the final act. The truth, when it comes, is more modern than the horseman. The feud survives the case, just with fewer people left to carry it.