Dead Reckoning

An escort agency woman is found murdered in a hotel car park, and at the same time the daughter of a well-known ex-army colonel goes missing. The two events may be linked or may be coincidence, and the episode keeps both options alive for a good while. The missing girl and the dead woman pull the team in two directions at once, and the episode enjoys the stretch.

Then Peter Letham, who runs an outward bound course for executives in the Highlands, reports his wife missing after a shopping trip to Glasgow. His employer becomes the main suspect, and the investigation starts pointing uphill. The outward bound setting is a long way from the car park, which is the point. The wife's disappearance is the thread that pulls everything else together.

But the undercover operation is the heart of it. Jackie goes in as a course member at Executive Adventures to keep tabs on a man the team suspects of murder, and the episode makes sure the risk is felt. Her cover, once blown, would put her in real danger, and the script does not wave that away. There is a good stretch of the episode where Jackie is alone among people she cannot trust, and the show makes that count.

Glenn Chandler and Richard Maher wrote it, Alan Macmillan directed. James MacPherson, Blythe Duff and Colin McCredie lead, with Iain Anders as McVitie, Robert Robertson as Dr Andrews and James Faulkner as Col Robert Falkirk. Steven Brand's Peter Letham, Eva Prentice's Heather Robbie, Ron Donachie's Hamish Baird and Anthony Edridge's Rick Turner complete the cast.

The outdoor course setting is a good change of scenery for a Glasgow show. The murders stay grim and the Highlands look lovely, and Jackie's risk stays real either way. It is a solid, tense outing that gives Reid her due.