Music Of A Dead Prophet

A tell-all book is about to allege that the British government assassinated an Iranian general in the 1950s and helped topple a regime. The official reaction is predictable: stop the book, protect the record. Palfrey is ordered to stop it, and he suspects a government cover-up almost at once. The book is described as explosive, and the government's alarm is easy to believe; thirty-year-old secrets have a way of being more dangerous than fresh ones. The order to prevent publication sits oddly with a man whose whole career is about finding things out. His method is characteristically blunt, even by this show's standards. He uses a murder victim to reel in his target, letting a death do the work that paperwork cannot.

Michael Chapman wrote the episode and John Davies directed it, and the result is a taut hour about how little the official record ever tells. The allegations about the 1950s stretch the story across three decades; the murder keeps it firmly in the present.

The cast is dependable company. Alec McCowen as Palfrey, Caroline Blakiston as the Coordinator, Clive Wood as Blair, Briony McRoberts as Caroline, John Shrapnel as Adrian Vyner, Paul Herzberg as Lester Dearborn, David Quilter as John McNair, David Savile as Forbes, John Bailey as Lord Lesley and Auriol Smith as Miss Picard. John Shrapnel as Adrian Vyner brings the right air of used intelligence to the room.

It is the kind of episode that works on two levels at once. On the surface, a cover-up to be pried open. Underneath, the quieter question of how many official histories were written by the people who had most to hide. But there is a grim satisfaction in watching Palfrey treat a death as a tool. It is the professional way to behave, and the show does not flinch from showing what that costs.