A Present From Leipzig

The case arrives as a small object: a stolen Russian icon, originally from Leipzig, that Palfrey is asked to look after. Small objects have a way of growing in this show. The trail leads to a wealthy industrialist who makes periodic trips into the Eastern Bloc, and two questions hang over the whole business. Why did the man never report the theft? And why is a young East German visiting his home? Nobody in Palfrey's world reports a theft at once, and that silence is where the mystery lives. For a piece about a holy image, it is a very secular set of motives on display.

Anthony Skene wrote the episode and Peter Cregeen directed it, and those two questions do the work of a dozen chases. The answers, when they come, tie a missing religious painting to the small, careful deceptions of men who travel across borders with more than luggage. There are no car chases and no airport showdowns, and the episode is better for it. The episode takes its time, the way these things should, and lets the industrialist's reluctance to talk do the storytelling.

The cast keeps the piece grounded. Alec McCowen as Palfrey, Caroline Blakiston as the Coordinator, Clive Wood as Blair, Briony McRoberts as Caroline, Martin Jarvis as Armitage, Louis Sheldon as Dieter, Prentis Hancock as Prentice, Forbes Robinson as Velliadis, James Faulkner as Reisman and Eric Carte as Benskin. Jarvis, in particular, is the right man for a character who thinks he is several moves ahead.

It is satisfying viewing in the show's quieter register. The icon is a present in the title and a problem in practice, and watching Palfrey work out which, and for whom, is most of the pleasure. And there is a dry pleasure in watching a man of the world like Armitage try to keep his business and his secrets apart.