Inquisition

Craven picks up a fraudster carrying a forged passport and an unlicensed firearm, which should be the end of the story. It is not. The man is cooperative and ready to talk, a self-confessed fraud, and Craven holds him anyway, without charges, turning the screw because there is something else he wants out of him. He is looking for information, not a conviction, and the difference is what the story turns on. His colleagues start asking questions about that, and the tables turn: suddenly it is Craven being accused of hounding a man who has already confessed. The fraudster has given him everything, or nearly everything, and Craven wants the rest.

Trevor Preston wrote it and Mike Vardy directed, and the episode is a study in how far a detective will push when he thinks he is right. Bill North watches his guv'nor from close range. Yearsley, Shepherd, Manning, Overton and the Matron all drift through a case that keeps refusing to behave, and none of it satisfies Craven. The suspect sits there being helpful, and that is exactly what makes Craven suspicious, because a man with nothing to hide does not usually cooperate this smoothly.

And the title is doing real work. An inquisition cuts both ways: the suspect is not the only one being questioned. The episode keeps the pressure on both men, questioner and questioned alike.

George Sewell's Craven anchors it, with Roger Rowland as Bill North, Clifford Rose as Yearsley, Sheila Scott Wilkinson as Pam Sloane, Alan Downer as Shepherd, Keith Anderson as Manning, Clement McCallin as Overton and Ruby Head as the Matron.

The pushiness is the point, and the episode leaves you to decide whether it is diligence or something nearer bullying. Craven thinks he knows better. The viewer gets to disagree. Preston's script trusts the audience to notice that the inquisition has become a mirror.