The Baited Trap

The second series closes with the Coordinator in the frame. A contact at the Soviet embassy tells her that one of her own agents is playing a double game. She does not hold that agent in high regard, which is a polite way of saying she would not mind an excuse to be rid of them, and she passes the task to Palfrey. He suspects a set-up from the start. The warning is too convenient, the source too eager, and the whole affair smells like a trap built for somebody else to spring. The master description promises the payoff: Palfrey finally comes face to face with the Coordinator, and the episode delivers it with the weight the meeting deserves, without raising its voice.

Philip Broadley wrote it and John Davies directed it, and the hour is a slow burn of controlled suspicion. The meeting, when it comes, is worth the wait. Everyone in it is watching everyone else, and the title does double duty, covering both the trap Palfrey lays and the trap he half expects to find himself in.

The cast does the quiet work well. Alec McCowen as Palfrey, Caroline Blakiston as the Coordinator, Clive Wood as Blair, Briony McRoberts as Caroline, Clive Francis as Nikolai Baliev, Jim Norton as Robert Sanding, Ruth Hudson as Zoya Yanova, Roger Heathcott as Colonel Piscarov and Richard Cash as Safonov.

It is always about who suspects whom and why, and this closing episode is that question in its purest form. The trap is baited, and the bait is watched closely. The series bows out on a note of doubt rather than resolution, which feels exactly right for the business these people are in. And after two series of watching Palfrey steer other people's traps, there is something satisfying in seeing him walk into one with his eyes open.