Remember Me

Twelve years is a long time to nurse a grudge, and the man DC Ted Donachie put away for rape has used every minute of it. Out of prison, he pulls an armed bank raid and then arranges for the loot to turn up in Donachie's own flat. It's a neat piece of revenge: the detective who helped frame him gets framed in turn, and the squad that trusted him starts looking at him differently.

Donachie insists he's innocent. The man who actually robbed the bank is happy to explain himself: he says Ted fitted him up for the sex crime all those years ago, and this is payback with interest. That turns the robbery into the least interesting part of the investigation. The real question is what else the strong, silent one has buried. And the affair with colleague Grace Harris is only the part they already knew about.

The script keeps its cards close, and Robert Willox plays Donachie as a man who has learned that explaining yourself only makes you sound guiltier. Around him the unit fractures in the usual ways. Gary McDonald's Oxford half-believes the worst. David Sterne's Uttley tries to hold the line, while Reece Dinsdale's Charlie Scott and Brendan Coyle's Bob 'Bingo' Tate drift through with opinions of their own. Elaine Collins appears as Mary Donachie, wife to a man whose secrets are leaking out everywhere.

Brendan J. Cassin wrote it, Alex Pillai directed, and they've made a quiet study of trust inside a squad room. It went out in November 1996. The premise promises fireworks; the episode delivers something smaller and more uncomfortable, which suits the subject. The pleasure is in watching the realisation spread across the room that Ted isn't the man they thought he was, and that most of the people sitting with him are suddenly unsure of their own judgement.

The robbery gets solved, more or less, and Ted's name gets cleared, more or less. The doubt is the part that stays with you.