Ghost Rider

A charred body in a burnt-out car is rarely a pleasant sight, but it usually at least points the inquiry in a direction. Here it points the other way, back at the force itself.

The dead man is burned beyond easy recognition, and as Jardine, Reid, Fraser and Ross begin the long job of identifying him and working out how the car came to burn, the case starts throwing up the kind of names that make detectives go quiet. Police corruption, cover-ups, colleagues who would rather the truth stayed buried. Every door they open leads to another one firmly shut.

It's a familiar Taggart theme, done with the show's usual refusal to look away. The suspicion settles on people with rank and connections, and the investigation keeps snagging on institutional stone walls. Tony Sullivan, Siobhan MacDonald, Patricia Dillon and Chief Superintendent Andrew Lennox all have their roles in the mess, and DI Ronnie Greig hovers somewhere between help and hindrance. The closer the team gets to the truth, the more people there are trying to make the case disappear along with the body.

Glenn Chandler and Richard Maher wrote it, Michael Brayshaw directed. James MacPherson leads as DCI Mike Jardine, with Blythe Duff, John Michie and Colin McCredie as Reid, Ross and Fraser, and Robert Robertson's Dr Stephen Andrews in the lab. Rob Spendlove plays Tony Sullivan, Andrew Connolly is DI Ronnie Greig, Maureen Beattie plays Siobhan MacDonald, Megan Fisher is Patricia Dillon and Ken Drury takes the Chief Superintendent.

The most obvious crime scene, the episode keeps reminding you, can hide a darker secret about authority itself. And when the people you're supposed to trust are the ones closing ranks, the procedural wheels grind slower than ever. That's the real horror here, and it doesn't need any supernatural help to land.