Moviegoers familiar with Ray Winstone, the British actor currently on view as one of Jack Nicholson’s henchmen in Martin Scorcese’s Boston-mob saga, “The Departed,” may also recall him in “Sexy Beast” (2000), a British movie in which he shines as a retired, disarmingly gentle Cockney thief who simply wants to enjoy the good life poolside in sun-baked Spain until he’s forced back into crime by the unexpected arrival of a terrifying gangland boss played by Ben Kingsley — a martinet to end all martinets.

You may also have witnessed Mr. Winstone enduring the insolent putdowns of John Malkovich (in full, fey sociopathic flight) while playing yet another criminal in Liliana Cavani’s delectable adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley’s Game” (2002). The unexpected touches of kindness, fear, and even masochism Mr. Winstone displays in these last two films, although mixed with outbursts of anger and cold brutality, are what set him apart as a “tough guy”actor, and can perhaps be traced to his days as an amateur boxer, when the ability to give and take punishment and the knowledge of fear were a given.

Mr. Winstone is on the wrong side of the law in all these films, but the new four-part BBC America series, “Vincent,”which begins Monday night, finally places him on the side of legality, if only by an inch or two, and sometimes barely that. As Vincent Gallagher, a middle-age ex-cop who now heads his own private detective agency in Manchester, Mr. Winstone looks more haunted here than he ever did as a crook. And the police still don’t like him.

The narrative of Monday’s two-hour episode runs on parallel tracks, shadowed by a deadly third rail. Gallagher’s clients may have problems, but so does he. In fact, they’re unnervingly similar. His lover of long standing has left him for another detective, much to his slowburning rage. (The message on his answering machine is a surly growl: “This is Vincent. Please leave a message. If you want Cathy, she doesn’t live here anymore.”) In the meantime, he and one of his female employees, Beth (Suranne Jones) are involved in the kind of routine case that’s the bread-and-butter of private investigation: A jealous husband, a cheating wife.

The husband is Gary De Silva (Mark Warren), a scrawny cuckold with scrunched-up features and cropped black hair clamped like a too-tight helmet over insomniac skin. On the night we enter De Silva’s life, his glamorous better half — she looks like she’s in a commercial; he’s stuck in reality TV — is going for a swim at her health club, after which she’ll be having a quick drink with an unnamed other, location also unnamed. Gallagher and Beth have been hired to shadow her every move.

So far so normal but for the feverish flicker in Gallagher’s eyes, the noir shadows, and hints of expressionist camera angles and suffocating close-ups that suggest trouble to come, as does Rob Lane’s excellent soundtrack. When the wife turns out to be cheating as advertised, Gallagher makes the beginner’s mistake of allying himself emotionally with the client. (After all, he’s just been cuckolded himself.) Shadowing his prey in a nightclub, he does more than simply collect evidence and take photographs. In the lingo of the trade, he “identifies himself to the target” and humiliates her publicly.

The target is not amused.”What right have you got to spy on me?” she screams at him.”Is this what you do for money?” (Well, yes it is.) Her boyfriend is similarly unamused. And Beth, who takes her orders from Gallagher, is furious. “Well done,” she says icily as they return to their car.”I did handle that rather well,” Gallagher replies, trying to make light of the error. “Yeah, textbook,” she snaps.

One of the intriguing things about “Vincent” is how free Gallagher’s employees are to criticize him. He is, after all, paying their salaries. Beth not only demands an apology from Gallagher but gets it. Cool under pressure, a brunette with a face full of arresting angles, she makes a perfect foil for her often overheated boss. We want to see more of them together, and I suspect we will.

“Vincent” is top-notch contemporary British television. But since American television largely sets the standard for how we consider television, the contrasts between the two are instructive and worth pointing out.

For instance: The actresses on “Vincent” are attractive, but not to the point where you wonder why they’re chasing adulterers or transcribing wiretaps rather than parading up and down a catwalk. The men are varied in age and character. Gallagher can walk into an upscale clothing store and knee a sales clerk in the groin; he can also embrace a distressed female employee in a way that’s unsexual without being absurdly so, as if there were lawyers peeping from behind every lamp post. The plot is attended to, but not at the expense of the relationships between Gallagher and his fellow sleuths, between Gallagher and his ex, and between the sleuths themselves. And let’s not omit Gallagher’s battle with his own demons, which lead him into some ethically dubious behavior.

The locales range from the gritty to the grand. Technology has a role but doesn’t predominate. There are blows but not guns, and there are no nerd geniuses à la “Numb3rs”or “Heroes”to explain everything with gobbledygook diagrams and incomprehensible reams of computer code. There is a corpse, and it’s female, but it’s brought to our attention just long enough for horror to register and not so that medical types can crowd around and poke away at it endlessly in the clinical manner of “CSI.”

Sexuality is variegated: mostly cheerful and sensual, but on occasion obsessive and predatory. Rage feels real, as do resignation, kindness, and regret. And except for Gallagher, the sleuths don’t seem entirely identified by their jobs. You can imagine their private lives, even if you’re not shown them.

But perhaps we will be. At least three episodes of a second season of “Vincent” have already been filmed in England. Should the series prove successful here, that gives us a lot to look forward to. In the meantime, make sure to catch the opener on Monday night.

bbernhard@nysun.com