Downwind of Angels

"Downwind of Angels" starts with the newspapers doing the plot summary for you: Murder at Maison Igor's. The murder is the cue, and the real business of the episode is the hunt for the unseen gunman who did it, a man who seems intent on further killings around London. But the clock is ticking and official channels are getting nowhere, so Craven and Haggerty fall back on their own methods. The methods are familiar to anyone who has watched this series long: patience and legwork, with the occasional push where the book does not reach.

The chase keeps the episode lean. Peter Hill's script stays close to the procedural, tracking the pair through interviews and guesswork as they try to get a line on a killer who never stays still. Peter Bowles, always good value, plays Igor, with Janet Key's Carla, Seretta Wilson's Milly, Lucy Appleby's Margaret Cope and Peter Blythe's Fountain filling out the picture. Bowles would go on to make a career out of oily charm in To the Manor Born, and he is already very good at it here. Susan Jameson's Detective Sgt. Mary Holmes is on the team, and Paul Eddington's Strand and Frederick Jaeger's Commander Fletcher keep the hierarchy visible. The hunt gives Sewell and Mower plenty of room to do their two-handed routine, which is the show's quietest pleasure.

Tom Clegg directed, and the pacing is brisk. The episode wears its purpose on its sleeve: it is a working hour of television, more interested in the next lead than in anyone's backstory, which is exactly what a story about a killer at large needs. Nobody stops to moralise about the gunman; there is a man to find.

A gunman stalking London is a fine excuse for an hour of Special Branch, and this one takes it. There is no sentiment here, and none is wanted.