Blueprint for Murder

A South African diplomat is in London, and the word is that somebody intends to kill him. Special Branch draws the protection detail, and from the first briefing the operation is in trouble. Craven is fretting about North's methods, the diplomat's manner is doing nothing to help, and the unit ends up guarding a man who seems determined to make the job harder than it already is. Assassination is the sort of rumour that follows a man from his own country, and the unit has to treat it as real without being able to point at it.

Peter Hill and Ian Black wrote it, William Brayne directed. George Sewell is Craven, Patrick Mower is Haggerty, Roger Rowland is North. Kenneth J. Warren is Coatzee, Arne Gordon is Wildebrand, Bloke Modisane is Mbeya, Alex Scott is Graham, Louis Mahoney is Jalobe, the South African Freedom Representative, Jean Harvey is Mrs. Curzon-Smith and Patrick McAlinney is Father McMahon. Modisane was a noted South African writer before he was an actor, and his presence gives Mbeya a weight the script does not have to ask for.

But the real subject is the friction inside the operation. The assassin is the excuse; the story is Craven's worry that his own man is not up to the job, and the polite habits of officialdom that stop anyone saying so out loud. There is a good episode to be made about a unit that cannot quite agree on how to do its work, and this is it.

It also makes the point, quietly, that a protection detail reveals more about a unit than a year of raids. The diplomat's contempt for his protectors does not help, and neither does the parade of officials who make the security arrangements feel like a committee exercise. Craven's doubts about North are the kind of thing that usually stays under the surface of this show, and seeing them pulled into the light is the episode's real pleasure. In the end it is less about the bullet than about the men standing between it and the target.