Genesis

A woman dies on her way to a fertility clinic, and a nurse at the clinic is attacked soon after. The obvious question is whether the two events belong together, and the obvious answer is the crowd of protesters outside the building, standing with their placards and their certainties about what the clinic does. The word peaceful is doing a lot of work in that description, and Reid, who finds herself leading the case, knows it.

The enquiry has to pick its way through a battlefield of good intentions. The protesters believe they are defending something, and the clinic believes it is helping people. The dead woman believed she was on her way to a chance. Somewhere between those positions is a killer. The episode keeps the balance careful, letting the demonstrators be people rather than cardboard, while never letting the violence off the hook. That is harder to write than it looks. It is an ensemble piece in the truest sense, with every face on the picket line given room to be human.

Glenn Chandler and Chris Dolan wrote it, Ian Madden directed. Blythe Duff's DS Jackie Reid leads the team, with John Michie's DI Robbie Ross, Alex Norton's DCI Matt Burke and Colin McCredie's DC Stuart Fraser. John Dougall is Dr Skinner, Geraldine Alexander is Dr Gaynor Hursley, Benny Young is the Reverend George Stanford, Russell Anderson is Brian Murray, and Stuart Bowman and Cara Kelly are Ewan and Laura Brunton.

A season opener that starts at a clinic full of grief and anger sets a serious tone, and the show holds it. The mystery is fair, but the atmosphere is the draw: every conversation in the queue outside the clinic carries a charge. And the team handling a case where half the witnesses are praying and half are furious makes for the most human kind of police work.