A Woman's Word

Maggie Forbes has given her word to an informer, and keeping it is proving harder than giving it. The promise sits across the whole case. The episode works the dilemma for its full length: how far cooperation goes, and what a detective owes someone who has risked everything to talk. It does not pretend there is an easy answer.

The investigation moves through the usual furniture of the series, with Betty Farrell, Mr Goodwin and Malcolm Sinclair circling the central commitment. But the real drama is inside Maggie's own head. Russell, Slater and the rest of the squad all have a view. The word is hers to keep. An informer's safety may hang on her discretion, and one careless sentence could undo the whole arrangement.

The show has always been good at quiet episodes, and this is one of them. The stakes are professional and personal at once, and Maggie's integrity is the thing being tested. The test is whether she can catch the criminal and still live with herself afterwards. The quiet ones are often the hardest to write, and this one earns its calm.

Simon Masters and Terence Feely wrote it, Gerald Blake directed. Jill Gascoine is Maggie throughout, with William Marlowe as Russell, Paul Moriarty as Jake Barratt, Kevin O'Shea as Peter Phillips and Michael Graham Cox as Jack Slater. Nigel Rathbone appears as Steve Forbes, Angela Douglas plays Betty Farrell, Paul Humpoletz is Mr Goodwin, Joe McGann takes the small role of a traffic policeman and Nigel Humphreys plays Malcolm Sinclair.

There are no big set pieces here. The drama is Maggie weighing what she owes against what the case demands, and that is plenty. A promise in this job is a rare currency, and the episode treats it like one. It is a word-of-honour story in a genre that usually runs on warrants and handcuffs, and the change of pace suits her.