Fire, Burn

An arson case is a busy job on its own, with insurance, rivalries and a decent chance the fire was deliberate. A body in the basement of the burnt-out factory changes the arithmetic completely. What was a property file becomes a murder file, and the smell of smoke gets a new meaning. Arson rarely travels alone, and this one has brought a body along.

Burke is running the investigation now, and he's the sort of senior officer who treats a complicated case as a chance to find out what his people are made of. Fraser draws the grim task of identifying the dead man from the debris, while Burke and Ross put the pressure on Scott Dewar, a rival factory owner and the obvious candidate. But the case is also an exam, and Burke is marking everyone's papers as they go. The industrial rivalry gives the story its engine: businesses circling each other, grudges dressed up as competition, and a fire that was never really about the building.

Glenn Chandler and John Brown wrote it, Mike Alexander directed. Blythe Duff is DS Jackie Reid, Alex Norton is DCI Matt Burke, John Michie is DI Robbie Ross, Colin McCredie is DC Stuart Fraser, with Anne Marie Timoney as DSI Valerie Patterson and Brian Cowan as DCS Brian Holmes. Kate Donnelly and Russell Anderson play Maureen and Derek Wishart, Andrew Townsley is Charlie O'Rouke, and Frank Gallagher plays the suspect with the most to lose, Scott Dewar.

There's something fitting about a murder case that starts in ash and rubble. The episode keeps its eye on the procedure, and underneath all the business talk there's plain desperation. The new regime takes a while to settle in, and watching Burke stamp his authority on the room is half the entertainment. The ash, it turns out, was never really the point.