Time Bomb

Det. Supt. Inman is sent to look into the death of a young man in a bomb plot, and the case turns out to be bigger than the body. Omar Ben Ahlil was the son of a pro-British oil sheikh, which makes his murder a political event as much as a police matter. The sheikh is pro-British, which means the death is an attack on the friendship as much as on the family. Inman walks into a hotbed of competing interests and finds an international situation with the fuse already lit.

The episode spreads its net wide: the sheikh's family, a captain called Tait, a Q.C., a wreck assessor, a woman named Beryl. But everyone has an angle and nobody is telling the same story. Every witness is a suspect in waiting. The investigation keeps threatening to go global, and Inman spends the running time trying to stop the whole thing from detonating around him. Jordan and Morrissey are on hand in support while Inman carries the weight of the politics. Oil money, grief and diplomacy make a poor combination for a tidy police file. The closer the case gets, the wider the circle grows.

David Gordon wrote it, Voytek directed. Derren Nesbitt is Det. Chief Insp. Jordan, Fulton Mackay Det. Supt. Inman, with Morris Perry's Charles Moxon and Keith Washington's Det. Con. Morrissey. Salmaan Peerzada plays Omar Ben Ahlil, Harold Kasket Shaikh El Ahlil, Aubrey Richards Captain Tait, Edward Atienza the Q.C., Gillian Hawser Beryl and Andrew Laurence the Wrecks Assessor.

The title is not subtle, and neither is the plotting: a season closer with its foot on the accelerator. The bomb is figurative as much as literal, and Inman earns his pay by keeping a fuse lit long enough to find out who is holding the matches. The bang, when it comes, is mostly political.