Justice

Adler is back in CID, and his return has ruffled a few feathers. Whatever the office politics, his first case is a proper one. George Bensfield runs an antiques shop, and Bensfield's shop, it seems, is where stolen goods go to rest before moving on. Adler's job is to prove it.

The investigation has a pleasing, dusty texture. Antiques dealing is a trade built on provenance, and a man who can fake a history for a piece of furniture can fake a history for almost anything. Adler has to pick his way through the shop's respectable face to find the paperwork underneath. James Bree plays Bensfield with the smoothness of a man who has been asked the same questions before and always had an answer ready. He is the sort of dealer who would sell you your own clock back and wish you a pleasant day. Janet Burnell's Miss Polkington and Jennifer Moore's Evelyn Irons hover around the edges of the business, and Karl Howman, years before Brush Strokes made him a familiar face, turns up as Fletcher.

Elwyn Jones wrote the script and David Maloney directed, with the calm that the subject needs. The episode makes good use of the regulars: Hawkins and Cullen look on while Adler does the delicate part of the work, with Snow and Knowles providing the ground-level presence.

The title invites a wry smile. Justice here is a slow, patient business of receipts and valuations, and the show understands that the most valuable evidence is often the least dramatic. It is a quiet hour in the series' best tradition, and a reminder that Adler, whatever feathers his return has ruffled, still knows how to work a case. The episode does not need a corpse to hold attention, which is a lesson plenty of police shows never learned.