Whisper Who Dares

Spider has been in tight spots all series, but this time it's personal. Someone has threatened his girlfriend, and he's going after the man responsible, which is the one kind of trouble a clever burglar doesn't handle cleverly. The trail he follows is marked with dead bodies, and each one tells him the same thing: whoever he's hunting has no problem leaving witnesses behind. The exit he's looking for keeps closing, and the episode has the good sense to let him run out of road before the last act.

And the police are in the picture too, of course. Bulman and Willis keep surfacing, and Fairfax keeps an eye on his investment from the shadows. The old faces from the Thresher case drift through: Edwin Brooks, Tom Moody, Knocker Roberts. But the focus stays tight on Spider's scramble, and the show plays the hour as a chase rather than a puzzle. The mystery matters less than the running, and the running is relentless.

Kenneth Royce and Murray Smith wrote it, Carol Wilks directed, and it aired on the eighth of August 1977. Stephen Yardley carries it, with Don Henderson's Bulman, Dennis Blanch's Willis, Vivienne McKee's Maggie and Mark Dignam's Fairfax in support. Barry Andrews, Glyn Houston, Rachel Davies as Sheila Watts, Ron Bain as Danny and Derrick O'Connor complete the cast.

There's something of the escape artist's worst nightmare about the whole hour. Spider's gift has always been getting into places and getting out again, and here the doors keep locking behind him. The title whispers, but the episode shouts: whoever dares to follow this trail ends up like the men already on it. It's the closest the series comes to horror, and the dread suits a man who has spent two seasons proving he can climb out of anything.