The Killing Philosophy

It starts with a failed rape attempt by a masked attacker. Then the victim kills herself, and the case gains its first layer of guilt and unanswered questions. The attacker strikes again, and this time the attacks turn to murder. The masked man is a nasty piece of work: he gets away once, and the police are still catching up when he does it again. But the people closest to the original crime are lying in layers, which keeps the inquiry sliding out from under the detectives.

The truth, when it comes, is uncomfortable in the way this show does best. Patrick Clark bungles the killing and runs, leaving Kim Redman to finish the job herself, horrified and halfway to becoming a suspect. Patrick's best friend Alan McMasters, a crossbow enthusiast, comes under suspicion when Patrick drops his keys at the crime scene. Redman's part in it is the episode's most uncomfortable corner: a woman who never meant to kill anyone ends up carrying the whole weight of it. Everyone involved has a reason to point somewhere else, and the inquiry has to peel through them one by one, taking its time and wasting none of it.

Glenn Chandler wrote it, Haldane Duncan directed. Mark McManus is DCI Jim Taggart and Alastair Duncan is DS Peter Livingstone, with Sheila Grier as Kim Redman, Phillip Dupuy as Patrick Clark, Richard Jamieson as Alan McMasters and Rod Culbertson as Kevin Redman. Jenny Lee, Gerda Stevenson, Paul Kiernan and Jon Croft fill out the rest of the cast.

It is a bleak little episode, and the bleakness is the point. The story shifts from the routine slog of police work to sudden personal catastrophe without losing its footing, and the crossbow detail sits in the middle of it like a joke the writer decided not to laugh at. There is no comfort to be had, which is honest.