Safer

Emily Patrick ran the Safer campaign against domestic violence, which made her murder feel like a declaration. She had threatened to name and shame several wife-beaters, and one of them, Kevin Nash, has already brought charges against Robbie Ross, claiming Robbie beat him up after he'd assaulted his own wife. The campaign's whole point was to drag private violence into the open, and her death looks like the reply. That accusation hangs over the inquiry from the start. And it gets worse: another man attended one of Emily's meetings under an assumed name, and his failure to recognise her at the scene shifts suspicion onto one of her colleagues instead.

The prime suspect is an apparently reformed man whose violent past once drove his ex-wife to nearly kill him in self-defence. The case against him looks clean, which in this show is usually the first sign of trouble. The team builds a solid case anyway. Then Ross has a moment of madness during the investigation, and the whole thing is suddenly in jeopardy.

Glenn Chandler and Mike Cullen wrote it, Ian Madden directed. Blythe Duff is DS Jackie Reid, John Michie is DI Robbie Ross, with Alex Norton as DCI Matt Burke and Colin McCredie as DC Stuart Fraser. Gabriel Quigley plays Paula Nash, Stephen McCole plays Kevin Nash, Lorraine McIntosh is Sharon, Julie Austin is June Lamont, Lewis Howden is Colin McDermott, and Katrina Bryan turns up as pathologist Ellis Sinclair.

Domestic violence stories can tip into after-school special territory, but this one keeps its nerve. The point lands without being made at you: the campaigner is dead, the abusers walk around free, and the man investigating it is one accusation away from losing everything. The show lets it sit there unresolved, which is closer to how these things actually go. It's an uncomfortable hour, and meant to be.