Woman's World

A child has been murdered, and Barlow has a hunch about who did it. The hunch is the easy part. Getting a conviction is the hard part, because it rests on breaking into the secrets of a sad and lonely family, and no amount of crime-scene work will hand him that. This is a case that will be won in living rooms rather than on the street.

For extra friction, the episode gives him a female cub reporter who crosses swords with him at every turn. But she is not wrong about the case, which makes her harder to dismiss, and her presence keeps the investigation honest in ways the senior officers do not always enjoy. As Barlow works his leads, the case keeps retreating into private unhappiness, and the Gordon household becomes the slow target of the inquiry. Clifford Rose's Joseph Gordon and Cherry Morris's Anthea Gordon carry the family's weight, with Lois Hantz's Carol James, David Bird's Arthur Lacey and Sam Dastor's Doctor Pusey circling them. Barlow's hunch is the kind a good copper trusts and a court ignores, and the episode knows the difference.

Elwyn Jones wrote it and Frank Cox directed. Stratford Johns' Barlow is backed by Frank Windsor's Det. Supt. Watt and Norman Bowler's Det. Insp. Hawkins, with David Lloyd Meredith's Sgt. Evans on the ground. Heather Stoney doubles up as 'P' and W Det. Sgt. Green, which must have made for a busy week.

The title is the clue. This is an episode about the rooms the police rarely see, and about a reporter who will not let the force forget them. The public pursuit and the private misery run side by side, and neither gives ground. The case is about the living as much as the dead, which is where this show always sat best.