Gifts

Mysterious gifts in the post are, on the face of it, one of the nicer problems a detective can have. For Maggie and Steve Forbes they're a puzzle with a slightly sinister edge: parcels keep arriving, no note explains them, and the identity of the benefactor is anyone's guess. A secret admirer is the polite answer. Or somebody playing a dangerous game. Either way, the deliveries keep coming, and that regularity is what starts to feel wrong.

The episode stays close to the Forbes household, and there's real pleasure in watching Maggie apply professional habits to her own front door. Every parcel becomes an exhibit, and the postman gets treated like a witness. The team at Seven Dials gets pulled in too, with Russell, Fenton, Barratt and Croft circling the mystery, and the locals, Mr Selby, Mrs Bulstrode, Dr Bannington and George Taylor, each get their moment in the frame. The episode trusts you to wonder along with Maggie instead of rushing to answers.

Terence Feely wrote it alone this time, Christopher Hodson directed. Jill Gascoine and Nigel Rathbone carry the domestic half as Maggie and Steve, with William Marlowe's Russell, Derek Thompson's Fenton, Paul Moriarty's Barratt, Brian Gwaspari's Croft and James Ottaway's George Taylor on the police side. Jim Wiggins, Gillian Martell and Georgina Melville fill out the street.

It's a contained little mystery, built on observation rather than confrontation. But the best thing about it is the way a modest premise refuses to stay cosy. A gift is only a gift until you start asking who sent it, and the asking is where the danger lives. The stamps, the wrapping, the handwriting: all of it becomes testimony, which is a lovely conceit for a series that has always trusted small details. The episode is gently funny about the whole business right up until it isn't.