The Naming of the Dead

Edinburgh has polished itself up for the World Trade Summit, and the city is full of people who would rather the police did not disturb the peace. An unidentified body turns up in the grounds of the Macintosh House Hotel, the summit venue, and the timing could not be worse. Then the Scottish Executive's development minister, Ben Webster, is found dead beneath the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, and two deaths at the same moment in history are never two separate cases for long.

Rebus starts asking questions and immediately runs up against Commander Steelforth, played by Nicholas Jones, the man in charge of security for the summit. But Steelforth warns him off in tones that make clear this is not a request. His own side is not much help either, with the summit making everyone nervous. The friction is the episode's engine: Rebus wants the bodies explained, and the security operation wants the summit to look untroubled, and those two goals do not share a road.

Julie Graham is Stacy Webster, the minister's widow, and the cast around the inquiry includes Jimmy Yuill as Mickey, Leo Wringer as Joe Kamweze, Ron Donachie as DC Jack Gunner, Jennifer Black as DCS Gill Templer, Jordan Young as the young PC and Belle Jones as the hotel receptionist. Ken Stott and Claire Price anchor the investigation, and Ian Rankin and David Kane wrote it, with Martyn Friend directing.

The summit setting gives the whole thing a ticking clock that ordinary Edinburgh murders do not have. Every scene carries the weight of the cameras and the dignitaries, and Rebus is the one man on the ground who seems not to care about any of it. The first body, the anonymous one, is easy to forget, and the episode is careful to keep reminding you of it.

The castle ramparts make a grim backdrop for the second body, and the episode uses the city's own landmarks as a constant reminder of how old this place is and how little its history cares for modern convenience.