A Death Foretold

A student is found dead in an alley, and the evidence points to a drug deal that turned violent. It's the kind of case Glasgow police would recognise instantly. But a bloodstained leaflet at the scene is traced back to a local church, and the street-level crime starts to look institutional. The leaflet is the kind of detail that gives an enquiry its first shape: a piece of paper that should mean nothing, pointing at a place that should mean everything.

The victim, it emerges, had links to the parish priest, Father Michael Gow, who appears to have more to hide than the usual secrets of the confessional. The team's suspicions grow, and before anyone can make sense of the first murder, a second one happens. The second body lands before the first has stopped echoing, and the stakes double without the answers multiplying to match. The more the team pull on the priest's connection to the dead student, the more the church starts to look like a convenient place to hide things.

John Brown and Glenn Chandler wrote it, James Henry directed. Blythe Duff's Jackie Reid, John Michie's Robbie Ross, Alex Norton's Burke and Colin McCredie's Stuart Fraser work the case, with Lesley Harcourt's Gemma Kerr. Alan Steel plays Father Michael Gow, Ross Allan is Sean Davis, Sara Stewart appears as Yvonne Petrie, and Garry Stewart and Debbie Wheeler play Alex and Claire Marshall.

A murder that leads through a church door carries a built-in moral charge, and the episode leans on it without getting preachy. The priest is the most interesting figure in the case, and the show is smart enough to keep him that way. It's a case that keeps promising to resolve and then adding another body, with the priest at the centre of it, watching.