A Stirring of Dust

Thomas Darby sold his country years ago and defected to the Russians, and everybody who knew him has spent the time since assuming they would never see him again. Now he is back in England, and the news travels fast. Cowley wants Darby found because Darby can name the double agents still working inside British intelligence. Other people want Darby found for a simpler reason: to put a bullet in him before he says anything at all.

The episode is a race between the two groups, with Darby as the prize neither side can afford to lose. Every party in the chase knows his history, and a traitor inspires a particular kind of hatred, colder and more personal than the professional contempt reserved for ordinary enemies. The men hunting him are settling scores rather than doing a job, and the show keeps that difference visible in every confrontation. Every meeting could be a trap, and the episode makes you feel it. Darby is the rarest thing in this series, a villain who is also a victim, and the episode never lets you forget either half.

Brian Clemens and Don Houghton wrote it, and Martin Campbell directed. Robert Urquhart is Darby, and he plays the returned traitor with a weary defensiveness that keeps the character from being a pure monster. André Morell is Brigadier Stadden, Alan MacNaughtan is Sorenson, Carol Royle is Helen Pierce, George Murcell is Yashinkov, Billy Boyle is O'Leary and Robin Parkinson is a taxi driver. Parkinson, later of 'Allo 'Allo!, is a small reminder that the series liked to tuck familiar faces into odd corners.

It is a quiet, atmospheric episode, more about the waiting and the watching than the shooting. The title says it all: stir the dust and the past comes back up, and nobody gets to choose which parts of it resurface.