Cry Wolf

A young woman walks into a police station and says she's being stalked. The police listen, disbelieve, and send her home. Susan Grant, a charity worker, is in genuine fear for her life. But the one person who takes her seriously is Cowley, who knew her father, and Bodie gets the protection detail. It's a job that should be dull, and it isn't for long.

The job goes bad quickly. An intruder breaks into Susan's flat, and Bodie has to kill him. That clears the immediate threat but opens a longer question: who sent him, and why does anyone want a charity worker dead? Suspicion settles on Henry Laughlin, an elderly colleague, an inveterate campaigner for human rights, who keeps photographs of Susan in his own flat. The harmless manner and the pictures don't match, and the episode milks that gap for everything it's worth. Behind Laughlin, though, there's a gang with a plan, and neither Susan nor Bodie sees the whole shape of it until late. The show keeps its cards close on Laughlin, and it's a good while before you can decide whether he's a lonely old man or something worse.

Brian Clemens and Paul Wheeler wrote it, Phil Meheux directed. Sheila Ruskin gives Susan a nervy, watchful quality that keeps you doubting right alongside the police, which is the point of the title. Alan MacNaughtan's Laughlin is a properly unsettling turn. Rona Anderson, Gordon Jackson's real-life wife, plays Mrs. Grant, and the casting department deserves a nod for that one. David Neal's Bauer, Ian Bartholomew's Miller, Simon Templeman's Neville Grant and Timothy Block's Smith fill out the edges.

The episode refuses to tell you who to be afraid of, and that's its strength. The masked man is the easy answer. The harder one is the kindly old campaigner with the photographs, and the show lets you sit with that discomfort instead of resolving it neatly.