Loyalties

A masked man corners Mrs Beresford with a knife, makes his point, and runs off leaving her unharmed. That's the odd part. The attacker's care to leave her unharmed is the clue, and the episode treats it as one. But a threat that lands without following through is a message, and the message is aimed at her husband Victor, a wealthy businessman with a reputation to protect. Maggie is handed the case and the question that comes with it: who profits from fear?

John Barron's Victor Beresford is used to being the man other people worry about, and the episode takes quiet pleasure in watching him admit he can't fix this one by writing a cheque. Honor Shepherd's Mary Beresford is the one who actually faced the knife, and the script is careful with her: she's shaken, not ornamental. The Beresfords' marriage is examined with a light touch: two people running their own accounts, each convinced the other doesn't understand. Ray Lonnen's Alan Lawson hovers on the edges with his own loyalties, while Lesley Manville's Shirley Davis and Dawn Perllman's Brenda Griffiths round out the circle of people with reasons to want the Beresfords unsettled.

Tony Parker and Terence Feely wrote it, James Gatward directed. His direction keeps the tension quiet and the pace unhurried. The regular squad, Russell, Fenton, Croft and Barratt, do the methodical work of finding out who sent the message and why.

The episode's title points at the real mystery. Everyone in it is loyal to someone, and the loyalties don't all point the same way. Nobody in the hour gets to be simply good or simply bad, which is the show's house style. The masked man is just the question being asked. The answer turns out to be less about the knife than about which loyalty gives way first.