Menaces

Ivor Stocker is a JP, a successful businessman and, as the title has it, a man under menaces. Someone is blackmailing him. But blackmail cases have a habit of making the victim look shifty before anyone else does, and Maggie takes it on knowing the first person she'll have to suspect may be the man asking for help. Her way in is a law company that polishes its respectability like silver.

Joss Ackland plays Stocker with the weight of a man who has spent decades being looked up to, and there's real discomfort in watching that confidence come apart under the pressure of an anonymous threat. The can of worms turns out to be buried in the firm's own woodwork, which is where these things usually hide. Blackmail is a quiet crime. The episode keeps it that way, all pressure and patience, with the violence staying implied.

Judy Loe's June Stafford and Carmen Silvera's Rose move through the firm with their own agendas. Silvera, best known to most viewers as a sitcom regular, is a long way from comedy here: just a woman who has learned to be useful and keep quiet. Jill Baker's Connie and Robert Morgan's Phil Rae fill in the rest of the picture. William Marlowe's Russell, Derek Thompson's Fenton and Brian Gwaspari's Croft provide the familiar support, with Nigel Rathbone's Steve Forbes making one of his regular appearances.

Roger Marshall and Terence Feely wrote it, Paul Annett directed.

It's a solid, unflashy hour about how much rot a good suit can cover. The firm's polish is the problem; every room looks respectable, which is exactly the point. The satisfaction is in watching Maggie open the office doors one by one, never quite sure which will reveal a man with nothing to hide and which will reveal a man who has been hiding everything.