The Hit

A marksman with a high-powered rifle is loose on Maggie's patch, and that changes everything about how the squad works. The usual foot-slogging enquiry has to make room for something far more dangerous: a shooter who picks his moment and can end a life from a distance, with nobody the wiser until the shot is fired. A rifle changes the arithmetic of a case: one shot is all it takes.

The episode runs on the tension of the hunt. But every rooftop is a threat, every parked car a possible firing position, and Maggie has to track down the source of the shots while keeping everyone around her from becoming the next target. It's a case that punishes mistakes, and the writing leans into the pressure: the squad's usual confidence hardens into something more careful, more watchful. Nobody knows where the next round comes from, and that ignorance is the real villain of the piece. Around the case move the Knights, Gerald Harvey and Lottie Spencer, and the writing keeps their motives deliberately murky. The investigation has to be conducted in the open while the threat stays hidden, and the tension comes from that mismatch.

Terence Feely wrote it, Nic Phillips directed. Jill Gascoine leads as Maggie Forbes, with William Marlowe's Russell, Derek Thompson's Fenton and Paul Moriarty's Barratt alongside her. Brian Gwaspari plays Bob Croft, George Sewell is Dave Connally, Lynn Farleigh plays Valerie Knight, George Baker is Gerald Harvey, Linda Marlowe plays Lottie Spencer and Roger Sloman is John Knight.

It's a clean, precise piece of television, which is fitting for an episode about a man who never misses. The hitman is the most patient character in it, and that's the point. Sometimes the scariest thing on a detective's patch is somebody waiting. For a show usually built on conversation, it's a reminder that silence can be a weapon too.