Into the Night

Chappel spends this one in court, which is never where he looks comfortable. A prostitute stands accused of murdering her pimp, and the trial turns into a slow examination of everyone around it, not least the prosecution barrister. Paul Weir has decided, it seems, to take himself apart in public, and Chappel gets pulled into the wreckage as a witness with a ringside seat.

The domestic line is the sadder one. Jane Farrell loses her job with an investment company and decides the safest place to fall is back into the vice trade, the life she spent a series getting out of. There is a daughter in the picture too, and Jane has to square her with the world she is drifting back towards. It is a small, quiet defeat, and Sarah Parish plays it without fuss.

Elsewhere, DS Robinson strikes up a relationship with PC Morgan that nobody on the squad is calling by its proper name. "Inappropriate" is the word the paperwork would use, and the paperwork would be right. Robinson knows it is a bad idea, which is probably the point of him doing it. David Harewood and Rosie Marcel give it just enough heat to make the point, and just enough discomfort to stop it being a joke.

John Standing's Paul Weir is the sort of barrister who arrives carrying his own weather. Kate Lynn Evans has the thankless role of Fiona Weir, Emily Hillier appears as Leanne, Victoria Shalet plays Jane's daughter and Charlie De'Ath is Michael, while Caroline Catz's Hutchins keeps the station scenes tethered to the case.

Rob Pursey and Barry Simner wrote it, Julian Holmes directed. But it is a quieter outing than the opener, more about process and people coming apart at the edges. The court case resolves; the other stories simply keep going, which feels about right for this show.