A one-off television movie in 1990, but it was clear that it was intended as a pilot episode for a future series. The series eventually appeared three years later, with Belinda Lang and William Simons in the same roles as here, but with a different Inspector Alleyn, Patrick Malahide. Devotees of Ngaio Marsh's novel complained about the changes made to the story, particularly the addition of a lesbian sub-plot.
Inspector Alleyn has a bad reaction to seeing the bodies of the victims in this story, especially the second victim. His mother explains to Troy that Alleyn had a bad war and he "sometimes goes into neutral". This aspect of Alleyn was created for this episode; it is not evident in the novel on which it is based or mentioned in the subsequent episodes.
In an episode of the 1970s series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) Simon Williams (Inspector Alleyn) had a similar traumatic experience of the consequences of trench warfare in WW1.