The Rack

CI5 has never been a department that worried much about its own reputation, so it is a shock to see the organisation put on trial. A suspect dies in custody after an interrogation in which Doyle landed a blow, and the death gives an influential lawyer, Geraldine Mather, exactly the ammunition she needs. She calls for CI5 to be disbanded, and a committee is convened to decide the department's fate.

The dead man is Paul Coogan, younger brother of John Coogan, a boxer turned gangster whose drug business has been feeding information to CI5 through an informant called Nosey Parker. The convenient reading is that Doyle killed Paul with that blow. The true one, which Cowley digs out under the pressure of the inquiry, is more complicated and far more damning to Coogan. What starts as a defence of the department becomes an exposure of a violent operation, and the committee ends up getting more than it bargained for. The inquiry gives the episode a courtroom rhythm it would otherwise lack, and the hearings are staged with the same care as the shootouts. CI5, usually so secretive, has to argue for its own existence in the open, and it is not a sight the department enjoys.

Brian Clemens wrote it, and Peter Medak directed. Michael Billington is John Coogan, all charm and menace, and Lisa Harrow is Geraldine Mather, the lawyer who comes closer than anyone to closing the department down. Allan Surtees is the minister, Cyril Luckham is Judge Hall, Robert James is David Merlin, Ken Campbell is Parker and Trevor Adams is Benny.

The cleverness of the episode is that it makes you root for an organisation the series usually spends its time questioning. Whatever CI5's sins, the alternative, as the inquiry learns, is worse. And Cowley, fighting for the thing he built, is never more formidable than when he is cornered.