Knife-Edge

The first body part is a woman's leg, and no one is under any illusion that the rest of her will turn up quickly or politely. Peter Livingstone gets the unenviable job of digging through a garbage depot for more of it. Meanwhile Rosy French has taken a shine to George Bryce, the local butcher, a man not known for friendliness, and a gang of angry husbands is queuing at a hypnotist's door. Glasgow is having one of its weeks.

Taggart and Livingstone settle on Bryce as the killer, and the case seems to close itself. But then Bryce turns up dead, shot with the same gun that was used on the dismembered victim, and the investigation is back to nothing. It takes a bit more digging before the links start appearing, the kind of patient cross-referencing that looks dull on screen and solves cases in real life. The clues, when they finally connect, do so in a way that makes the earlier dead ends look deliberate rather than lazy. Taggart realises he is closer to the truth than he thought, which is the show's favourite way of keeping the last act honest.

Glenn Chandler wrote it, Haldane Duncan directed. Mark McManus is DCI Jim Taggart and Alastair Duncan is DS Peter Livingstone, with Alex Norton as George Bryce, Corinne Harris as Rosy French, June Watson as Jessie Clark and Dave Anderson as Dave McSwean. Christian Rodska, Iain Glen, Jan Wilson and Iain Anders, as Supt. Jack McVitie, complete the billing. Alex Norton's butcher is worth watching closely, given that the man would one day sit in the DCI's chair himself.

The dismemberment is handled the way the show always handled horror: it is mentioned, and then left to the imagination. The supporting stories give the city its texture, and the ending gets there without cheating. A solid, grimy hour. Not the show's most famous outing, and all the better for it.