Fade To Black

A young nurse is found strangled in her own home. No forced entry. Two glasses of wine on the table, which means she let her killer in, or at least knew them well enough to pour for two. On the face of it the case should be simple. Then the flat gives up its secrets: a large quantity of cash hidden away, signs of a lifestyle the nursing wage shouldn't stretch to. The victim had a double life, and Burke's team have to unpick it from scratch. The two glasses of wine are the episode's neatest detail, because they keep pointing back to intimacy rather than burglary.

The whodunit is a good one, but the episode runs a second, stranger thread alongside it. Someone is following Burke, filming him with a camcorder, and the surveillance adds an uneasy, noirish edge to the whole investigation. Watching the watchers is uncomfortable business, and the episode gets real mileage out of it without overplaying the hand. The camcorder turns the detective into a suspect in his own story, and Norton plays that unease well.

Glenn Chandler and John Brown wrote it, Brian Kelly directed. Alex Norton is DCI Matt Burke, Blythe Duff is DS Jackie Reid, John Michie is DI Robbie Ross, Colin McCredie is DC Stuart Fraser. Tamara Kennedy plays Sheila Crombie, Finlay Welsh is Jim Campbell, Lindsey Lee Wilson is Sandra Mailer, Carolyn Bonnyman plays Karen Redpath, and Gilly Gilchrist and Kathryn Howden are Adam and Jean Gillespie.

The episode is built on layers of concealment, and it keeps its cards close to the chest. But the image that stays with you is the camcorder, because being watched is a different kind of fear from being caught, and it follows the detective home in a way the case file never can. A nurse with a hoard of cash doesn't add up, and the flat keeps raising questions faster than the team can answer them.