Sorry Is Just a Word

A Czech au-pair vanishes in London, and her father happens to be one of the most powerful men in his country, which is the sort of detail that turns a missing person case into a diplomatic incident before lunch. Inman and Jordan take it on, and the episode is honest about how little they have to work with. The trail leads nowhere. Their enquiries run into a dead end, and the show lets it stay a dead end. There is no sudden confession and no last-minute rescue; the easy exits are all closed.

Michael Chapman wrote it and Jim Goddard directed, and the piece earns its title: sorry, whatever it costs the speaker, is just a word. Around the search move Detective Sergeant Davis and his wife Elsie, Ladislav Bilak, Detective Sergeant Donovan, Detective Sergeant Pritchard, and Gabrielle Drake as Karolina Novakova, the girl at the centre of it all. The ranks of Special Branch are out in force, and none of it is enough. Her father's standing makes the case important and makes it harder at the same time, because every move is watched.

And the episode is quietly brave about its ending. Not every case resolves, and Special Branch, for all its powers, cannot conjure a girl out of thin air. The title is the thesis: sorry is just a word.

Derren Nesbitt's Jordan and Fulton Mackay's Inman anchor it, with Morris Perry as Moxon, James Cossins as Det. Sgt. Davis, Sheila Raynor as Elsie Davis, Gary Watson as Ladislav Bilak, Gabrielle Drake as Karolina Novakova, Keith Washington as Det. Const. Morrissey, Robin Wentworth as Det. Sgt. Donovan and Colin Rix as Det. Sgt. Pritchard.

The enquiries end and the case stays open, and nobody gets the ending they came for. It is the rare procedural that refuses to pretend otherwise. And the title stays with you after the credits, which is more than most of them manage.