We're In This Together

Her Majesty's Inspector Sharp is coming to Thamesford, and the timing could not be worse. A newspaper article written by the local MP claims the police have a vendetta against the Salmader family, and that it is being run on the direct orders of John Watt. The MP's article lands like a grenade wrapped in newsprint. But the man from the inspectorate arrives with the paper on every breakfast table, and the squad has to defend itself against an accusation it cannot see coming.

Charles Gray plays Sharp, three years after he played Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, and he brings the same silky menace to the inspector's office that he did to the villain's lair. Watt, by contrast, gets to be the accused, which suits Frank Windsor's gift for dignified exasperation. Cullen hovers, Evans does the steady work, Dodds runs the errands, and the episode tightens around the question of whether the vendetta claim has any truth to it.

There is a special kind of tension in a police show when the police are the ones being investigated, and this one makes the most of it. The interview rooms get turned on their owners, the polite questions get sharper, and the accusation hangs over every routine call. The Salmader family are the name on the page, but they are never quite in the room, which is the point of a vendetta claim: it is hard to disprove a grudge.

Elwyn Jones and Arnold Yarrow wrote it, Gilchrist Calder directed.

The paperwork is polite and the knives are sharp, and the visit turns out to be less about inspection than about verdict. It is a talky episode in the best sense, one where a raised eyebrow does the work of a raid. The title is the squad's answer, whether anyone outside believes it.