Diane

A woman called Diane tries to leave her past behind, and Amsterdam turns out to be a poor place to do it. The past catches up, as it tends to, and Van der Valk gets pulled into the mess. What starts as a woman's private trouble becomes a run of strange accidents, and those accidents keep finding the detective and the girl alike.

The shape of the hour is a slow tightening. Diane's history will not stay buried, and the incidents that rise from it are the dangerous kind, the sort that put both her and Van der Valk in harm's way without ever quite explaining themselves. The pleasure here is in watching him walk into a situation he doesn't understand and refuse to walk back out. Jane Merrow's Diane is the still centre the trouble orbits, and the question of what she is running from is the only thread that matters once the accidents start stacking up. Van der Valk is the sort of detective who won't look away, and the episode keeps testing that.

William Ellis's Jean and Bruce Lidington's Paul move through the edges of the plot, with David McKail's Evert, Alexander Davion's Ranieri and Derek Smith's Jaap filling in a city that always seems to know more than it says. And none of them are straightforward; that's the point, in an Amsterdam where everyone is carrying something they would rather not hand over.

Philip Broadley and Nicolas Freeling wrote it, with Mike Vardy directing. Barry Foster leads as Van der Valk, Joanna Dunham's Arlette and Nigel Stock's Samson alongside him.

It's a quieter, more melancholy outing than some, built on the simple truth that you can change cities but not your own story. Diane learns that the hard way. So, in a smaller sense, does Van der Valk, who keeps answering when trouble calls his name.