Short Change

A young woman sits in custody facing a long gaol term for handing official secrets to the Russians. The case looks open and shut until Moscow offers a trade: a Briton held in a Russian prison in exchange for her. She is young, foreign and accused, and the system has her well and truly boxed in. But suddenly the girl in the cell is a bargaining chip, and the officers begin to suspect she is far more than she seems. The cell door is not the only thing holding her.

The swap changes the shape of the case. What was a prosecution becomes a negotiation, and the suspicion grows that the woman knows more than the documents she passed suggest. Françoise, Charlie Brewer, the Harrises and Christine Morris move through the edges of the affair, and Jordan has to work out who is being used and who is doing the using. The girl's true worth to both sides is the question nobody will answer straight. Everyone wants her, and nobody wants to say why. An exchange deal is a confession in both directions.

George Markstein wrote it, William G. Stewart directed. Derren Nesbitt is Det. Chief Insp. Jordan, Fulton Mackay Det. Supt. Inman, with Morris Perry's Charles Moxon, David Garth's Deputy Commander and Keith Washington's Det. Con. Morrissey. Sandra Bryant plays Christine Morris, Maurice Good Charlie Brewer, Tommy Godfrey Mr. Harris, Nellie Hanham Mrs. Harris and Marcella Saint-Amant Françoise.

'Short Change' works because the prisoner is the story. Nobody much cares about the documents once the trade is on the table. They care about the woman, and so does the audience, and that is exactly where the episode wants you. The title, by the way, is doing a quiet job of work. The documents are the accusation; the woman is the mystery.