Falling in Love

First parachute jump, groom to be, surrounded by the members of his local tango club. The chute doesn't open and Davie O'Connor hits the ground, and it would be natural to put it down to bad luck and bad equipment. Except the line was cut. A pre-wedding parachute jump is the sort of tradition that makes the safety inspectors wince, and this one ends the only way it was ever going to.

Jardine's team gets the case and the complications arrive in a hurry. The victim had terminal cancer, which changes the shape of everything: a man with months to live has less to lose, and the people around him have more to gain. His fiancée Marie Doherty now stands to inherit a considerable sum, which puts her firmly in the frame even as the grieving starts. The tango club members, all witnesses, all acquaintances, none of them exactly co-operative, make up a fine cast of quiet evasions.

Alongside all this, Ross is trying to talk Jackie Reid out of what he sees as a rushed marriage as her wedding day looms. It's a light enough subplot, and it stops the episode from drowning in gloom.

Glenn Chandler, Brian McGill and John Milne wrote it, Danny Hiller directed. James MacPherson is Jardine, Blythe Duff is Reid, John Michie is Ross, Colin McCredie is Fraser, Robert Robertson is Dr Stephen Andrews, Brian Cowan is DCS Brian Holmes and Yasmin Marley is WPC Heather McIntyre. Tom Bell plays Jack Hooper, Sheila Grier is Amanda MacKay and Jack McKenzie plays Jim Redpath.

The title is a bit of a wink, since this is a story about falling in every sense. But the parachute jump gives the show one of its more memorable opening images, and the case that follows keeps the pace up to match. The terminal cancer twist is the kind of complication the series has always handled well: it doesn't make the murder less serious, it makes it sadder.