Fox and Hounds

An old man is mugged and dies of his injuries, and Maggie Forbes is on the case. The crime is blunt and quick, the sort of street violence that leaves little to work with, and the investigation has to be built from the ground up. And the victim's community closes in around the detectives, every face in it with a view of its own.

The episode works the aftermath carefully. Mrs Jones and Mr Williams, connected to the old man's life, become part of the picture, and Leroy Winston Jones adds his own texture to the day's work. There is no clever conspiracy here. This is an ordinary death that has to be answered for, and the team goes about it the unglamorous way, checking stories and building the case in inches. Every witness saw it differently, which is the oldest problem in the book.

What keeps it watchable is the familiar friction of the squad. Russell steers the department's response. Slater and Sergeant Harry Cooper have their corners, and Maggie moves through the middle of it with the steady temper that is her whole method. The mood is workmanlike, and that is a compliment. Nobody is going to make a documentary about this death, and the episode does not pretend otherwise.

Tony Hoare and Terence Feely wrote it, John Reardon directed. Jill Gascoine plays Maggie, with William Marlowe as Chief Inspector Russell, Paul Moriarty as Jake Barratt, Kevin O'Shea as Peter Phillips and Michael Graham Cox as Jack Slater. Peter Spraggon is Sergeant Harry Cooper, Victor Romero Evans plays Leroy Winston Jones, Corinne Skinner-Carter is Mrs Jones, Oscar James plays Mr Williams and Ellis Dale appears as Mr Dean.

A modest, human episode that lets the victim matter more than the puzzle. The show has always been better at people than plots, and this is the good side of that trade.