Conclusion

The season ends with the squad looking at one of their own. Sgt. Evans notices that PC Drake seems to be living a little too comfortably for a constable's pay, and he does the proper thing: he takes his suspicions to Hawkins. From there the matter moves up the chain. But accusing a colleague of anything is not a decision you make alone. Evans is not the sort of man to make trouble without cause, and the chain of command knows it.

Drake goes into plain clothes so his movements can be watched, and the quiet operation to find out where the money comes from gets under way. It is an uncomfortable sort of case, conducted among the same desks and corridors where everyone knows everyone, and the cast handles that discomfort well. PC Snow, meanwhile, does the episode a favour by turning up a piece of evidence in an unlikely place, which is exactly the sort of luck a good investigation makes for itself. The operation is the quietest kind of police work: hours of watching a colleague go about his day while the force tries to decide what it is looking for. Nobody enjoys it, which is the surest sign the inquiry is working.

Stratford Johns' Barlow, Frank Windsor's Watt, Norman Bowler's Hawkins and Walter Gotell's Cullen all have their say, with David Lloyd Meredith's Evans the man who started it all and Terence Rigby's Snow the one who finished a thread of it. Brian Hall's Drake carries the weight of being the subject, Heather Stoney's PW Det. Sgt. Green and Michael Burrell's Adams fill the gaps, and Radar the police dog is on hand as ever. Elwyn Jones wrote it, Frank Cox directed.

It is a quiet way to close a season, built on suspicion rather than sirens, and it lands all the harder for that. The show ends its year the way it ran it, with an honest question about the people in uniform and the lives they lead off duty.