Special Relationship (2)

Special Relationship finishes with the cold case squad squeezed between two problems. One is the murder of Katherine Reed, a feminist whose private life turns out to hold the keys to her own death. The other is a surprise audit from the Home Office, landing mid-inquiry, because what every overworked detective needs is a clipboard.

The Whitehall half of the story gives the episode its texture. As Boyd tries to keep the murder inquiry moving, the offices he has to work through prove dark and secretive in a way no morgue ever manages. People outrank him here, and they behave accordingly. There is a particular kind of obstruction that comes with government corridors, and the episode leans into it: the answers exist somewhere in those filing cabinets, but everyone would rather the squad simply went home. Boyd, who has never met an institutional wall he didn't want to headbutt, suffers accordingly.

Against that backdrop, the way into Reed's murder is unexpectedly intimate. What cracks the case open is her desire to have a child. The team follows her hopes, her relationships, her wish for motherhood, and finds the truth sitting in her life instead of in any official file. It's a good reminder of what this show does that most procedurals don't: treating a victim as a whole person whose wants matter, even the ones that got her killed.

Stephen Davis and Barbara Machin wrote it, David Thacker directed, and it first went out on 17 September 2002. Trevor Eve leads as Det Supt Peter Boyd, with Sue Johnston as Dr Grace Foley, Holly Aird as Dr Frankie Wharton, Claire Goose as DC Amelia Silver and Wil Johnson as DS Spencer Jordan. The guests are fine company: Corin Redgrave as Sir James Beatty, Patricia Hodge as Lady Alice Beatty, Ruth Gemmell as DI Jess Worrall, Anton Lesser as Professor Ray Levin and Amanda Root as Lorna Gyles.

It's a quieter sort of hour than some of series two's louder cases, and better for it. Watching Boyd grind against the machinery of the state while a dead woman's hopes turn out to be the sharpest tool available is the programme doing what it does best.