WELL, if I seriously made a living from the business of murder, my first question would concern that suspicious looking trunk dominating the centre of the living room.

One large, green trunk.  That’s right, and it’s obviously tailor-made to accommodate a corpse, absolutely perfect to receive a human body either whole or neatly butchered.

Yet neither the dodgy copper Hallett nor his crime writer fancy piece seems remotely curious.

But surely the first question to be asked is “What’s in the enormous trunk, Mr Stone?”

And as the conversation becomes disturbingly obsessive and menacing, why doesn’t the policeman’s lover, Dee Redmond, start to get just a tad worried… let alone allow such an individual to be constantly pouring the drinks, and out of sight at that?

That said this is a good old-fashioned thriller of the first order, a tale of bitter revenge with more sinister twists and turns than the lane up to Norman Bates’ Motel.

Robert Gwilym is horribly convincing as Stone, the man who has reared up from the past to haunt the people who brought about his original downfall.

And Paul Opacic as Hallett is coldly brilliant as Stone’s nemesis, epitomising the Life on Mars 1970s brand of policeman, equally adept with a punch to the kidneys as a casual stitch-up.

But once again, why isn’t Dee (Joanna Higson) just the remotely bit worried when Stone’s voice shifts from mere cackle to eerie falsetto as he obsesses about murder, a subject that clearly fascinates him?

Nevertheless, Richard Harris’ cracking yarn still has us on the edge of our seats right up to the end when the plot abruptly takes a sharp turn into the completely unexpected.

The Business of Murder runs until Saturday (June 27).