Break-In

A break-in at a solicitor's office doesn't sound like the stuff of crisis. This one is different: the solicitor prosecutes for the police, and what Maggie finds among the disturbed papers puts one of her superiors in an ugly light. The incriminating evidence turns up in the middle of a routine inquiry, which is how the best scandals start. The burglary turns out to be the small door into a much bigger room, and the episode's real subject is what an officer does with evidence that points at her own side.

Feely's script keeps the dilemma coiled and quiet. Maggie does what she does, follows the trail. But it leads somewhere she'd rather not go. The confrontation that follows is handled with the show's usual restraint. Nobody shouts. Both of them simply seem unsure, suddenly, which rules apply. The show has always been interested in what police work does to police officers, and this hour is that question with the volume up.

Colin McCormack's Jack Ledley and Linda Renwick's Mrs Ledley are the couple at the heart of the break-in, and Paul Angelis's Phil Wogan gives the inquiry its practical edge. David Gant's Noel Simpson is the kind of man who takes care to appear on the right side of things, which makes him worth watching. Around them the regulars do their steady work: William Marlowe's Russell, Derek Thompson's Fenton and Brian Gwaspari's Croft all get moments, Paul Moriarty's Barratt deals directly with Simpson, and Nigel Rathbone's Steve Forbes reminds you that Maggie's home life is still ticking over.

Tony Wharmby directed.

The episode doesn't resolve the bigger questions it raises about loyalty inside a force. It doesn't need to. The point is the moment when Maggie holds the file and decides what the word duty means to her. That moment is the whole hour.