Nemesis (2)

Part two picks up with Elizabeth Temple in a bad way. She has been badly injured during the events of the first half, and from her sickbed she sends for Miss Marple with one piece of information to pass on: ask them about Verity. It is not much to go on. But it is enough.

The business of clearing Rafiel's son's name goes on, and the case is turning on a strange truth: love can inspire murder as much as hate. Hatred at least gives you a reason you can follow. Killing out of love is scarier, because the killer believes they are doing the right thing. The two parts have been building to it quietly, letting the motive of affection sit there until it becomes the most obvious explanation in the room. It is the kind of motive Miss Marple understands better than most; she has spent a lifetime watching people persuade themselves into terrible choices.

The episode was written by Agatha Christie and went out on 8 February 1987, the same night as the first part. No director is credited in the records. Joan Hickson carries it, and she is enough; the story keeps its focus on Marple working the case across the countryside, carrying the weight of a dead friend's request, and the wide setting suits a mystery that has been widening all along.

It is a quiet piece of television, and that is to its credit. A sensible woman asks the right questions in the right order, and the people around her try to keep their balance on the edge of a very old secret. Elizabeth Temple's single message is the key, and it is delivered in the offhand way Christie specialised in.

This story trusts its audience to follow the slow build, and it is rewarded. The final part lands with the quiet certainty of a well-set trap closing, and the countryside, which has held the secret all along, finally gives it up. And the title, Nemesis, earns its weight: justice here arrives late, but it arrives.