Killers (1)

The first episode of the series opens on the day of Maggie Forbes's promotion to detective inspector, and it's one of the crueller ironies in early Eighties telly: within hours of the ceremony, her husband Ray is shot dead by two brothers. The promotion is a milestone she has worked towards for years, and it doesn't survive the night. Ray was a police constable, which makes it police business. Maggie is ordered to stay at home while her colleagues work the case, which makes it personal torture. The force is protecting her. She gets to sit with the curtains drawn while Russell, Fenton and the rest piece together what happened to her marriage.

The killing itself isn't the mystery, or not the whole one. The Blanden brothers, Jed and Harry, did it. But she has to stand back from it all the same, watching the investigation go on without her. The episode is built on that enforced stillness, and it's a brave way to start a series. The lead is given very little to do beyond wait, and Jill Gascoine makes waiting look like the hardest job in the Met. You can see her filing every detail away for later. The investigation belongs to her colleagues, and the episode watches them work it with a professional detachment Maggie can't manage.

Brian Finch and Terence Feely wrote it, Tony Wharmby directed. Leslie Schofield has the thankless part of Ray Forbes, dead before the titles settle, and Nigel Rathbone appears as Steve, the son who will matter more as the season goes on. William Marlowe's Russell, Derek Thompson's Fenton and Paul Moriarty's Barratt form the squad, with Stephen Yardley and Brian Croucher as the Blandens, Sue Nicholls as Joanne and James Ottaway's George Taylor keeping the station's counsel.

The title promises killers. What you actually get is a widow learning to work the system from the wrong side of the tape. It's a patient, upsetting hour, and the series never quite lets go of that opening wound.