As I have said on previous occasions the main joy of New Tricks is the composition of the Unsolved Cases Unit and the their interaction:- Alun Armstrong, Dennis Waterman and James Bolam led by Amanda Redman. I shall miss the familiarity of faces of my generation although heartened that if I am here in a year’s time, so will they, or at least two of the three because a question mark could hang over one, according to last episode of the series of ten which came to an end yesterday.
In the Gentleman vanishes the team are asked to investigate the missing husband by his wife after she receives a series of emails from a firm in Switzerland who continue to work on the concept of cold fusion on which her husband worked and had claimed a breakthrough before his disappearance.
A feature of the series is the explanation of the technical aspects of policing work and as in this situation of a highly technical subject which could have been the cause of the disappearance. For the record Cold Fusion was a concept introduced by two scientists in 1989 who claimed that on a table top experiment they had in effect created the potential for a cheap source of energy replacing dependence on the need for a continuous supply of oil and gas. That one of those involved was a world wide recognised authority in his subject aroused the interest of government as well as the scientific community but their discovery was quickly consigned to pathological science with accusations of flawed experimentation and impossible difficulties in achieve the objective.
Cynics and conspiracy theorists continue to claim that such would be the impact of the discovery that not just existing energy producers would oppose and seek to silence such a development but the present nature of the world economy and therefore state power would be turned upside down that the G20 powers collectively would seek to stop development or equally individually seek to gain control.
In the programme the scientist disappeared on a train to Paris during a brief period of four seconds as he walked to the buffet car to buy something for a blind man seated across the gangway and who had engaged him in conversation. He or someone had taken up the hotel booking in Paris but had not turned up for the conference he was attending as replacement for his collaborationist whose home had been broken into and among the possessions taken was his passport. As became revealed when his wife was interviewed he was a man increasingly absorbed in his work, disliked confined spaces such a as planes and tunnels, hence to the use of a standard train from London to Dover and Ferry, coping with arrangements and household activities. His wife who would have usually accompanied me on such a venture had been unable to do so because of the short notice. There are several flaws in this aspect of the story as there are in every story line once time is taken to examine the plots. This never matters.
What happens next is that the officer responsible for the Team is approach by a former colleague, old school friends and all that in the supermarket and invited to a meal at his club/restaurant to enjoy Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska and then casually, as one does, offer official advice which is open to interpretation as a warning off, or an official interest in finding an answer, and this included giving the name of an individual which the team quickly find appears to have no record or no connection with those identified with the missing Professor. There is a delightful moment towards the end when the unit head confronts his friend who admits he is involved with UK intelligence that most of what is done is pointless. I think not.
As is the custom the team gradually unravel what actually happened going through several twists and turns and red herrings. In this instance they make progress after discovering that the blind man is a confidence trickster, now in prison, and who is consequently persuaded to disclose that all he was asked to do was to pose as a blind man on the train and at an agreed time engage the professor in conversation and ask for something to be obtained from the buffet. He was then asked to pose as the Professor at the booked hotel and then come forward as a witness once the disappearance was reported in the media. The second flaw is that given the circumstances and background of the Professor he would have been met at the railway station in Paris and then taken to the arranged Hotel and looked after until the presentation of the Paper. It would have become immediately known that he never reached the Continent
The con man received instruction dropped at his home in the middle of the night as was the payment in cash. When he is forced to reveal who recruited him for the job the man named is murdered at the public house just as where two members of the unit have approached to question.
The team have also interviewed the research assistant who worked with the Professor but had lost her job when the unit was closed following the disappearance. She appears to be in a relationship with an older woman who shares her flat and is anti police because being an environmental activist she opposes the police approach to past activities. She is also a computer expert. Clue.
The team go back to his wife because they believe that there is something which she has not revealed. She admits that she had met an on line contact through a web site she had some responsibility and because her husbands aversion to normal social activities she had enjoyed drinks and meals with the man and this had led to sex. She is confident this had nothing to with the disappearance of her husband. I cannot remember in which order she mentioned that he had broken off the relationship shortly after the husband had gone missing but after they had spent a night together on the day when her husband was scheduled to be in Paris that she had tried to get into contact but found the telephone number disconnected and the email returned. That she did not put two and two together is another flaw in the story line. It is when they asked for information about the man that she reveals his name, the same name as given by the Government Intelligence man.
Their suspicions are confirmed when on visiting property in the name of the individual and a shell company they find a camera above the bed and an coaxial cable down to the basement where they also find a metal chair fixed to the ground which the obvious conclusion that the man had to watch his wife commit adultery shattering his whole world resulting in his giving the information wanted and then he was killed and buried in the garden. The aspect which again flawed the story was that having gone to the trouble of removing furniture and television they had not removed the camera the cable or the chair or more effectively buried the body.
Jack, I think it was, leans on a former computer hacker who he had previously saved from prison and who therefore owes him and who had established a business advising firms how to be secure against hackers to find out who had sent the emails and if they were genuine. He is able to confirm authenticity but using methods which cannot be used in court. He advises that only one individual could have entered the computer system of the Swiss based firm and redirected the emails to the wife of the Professor. Someone with the handle Nail Tails who could do the job. This leads them back to the computer friend anti police of the former assistant to the Professor who admits her friend has left and admitted she had lied about everything told her. They find in effect a confession and a photo of missing suspect. What happened is that she had been recruited because of her environmental interest with a view to securing the information so that it would be used for the benefit of everyone, such was also the view of the Professor and she had been on the train to pull the communication chord to take the man off. However she had no idea the intention was to torture and kill him and had gone into hiding to plan her revenge.
Confronting the Government Intelligence man again the unit chief learns that the wanted man is a rogue agent who had gone private and that he and the accomplice on the train who had murdered the recruiter in the pub would be arriving at St Pancras from the continent in the morning and the unit is free to pick them up. However the rogue agent is executed by Nine Tails who gets her revenge. The Intelligence man had mentioned his interest in ancient mythology which turns out to be a fox with nine tails and the name under Nine Tails was known to her flat mate was A Fox.
As I have said many times the joy of the programmes are the three male characters that form the unit of rehired former detective Alun Armstrong plays an obsessive recovering alcoholic, former Detective Sergeant, with the skill is connecting the dots in ways which others only come to long after- if they ever do. In this programme the picture painted of the professor is that of a man continuously living within his own world with only his wife able to influence and who provides security and domesticity. This could be Brian with Ester his wife having expressed at times her frustration, loneliness and unhappiness as she feels she is acting more as his mother than as lover and partner, something which the wife of the Professor also expresses in this episode.
PS and it is a big one. In the series the Cold Fusion idea for which the Professor is murdered does not work. At least that is consistent with reality.
In episode 8 of the series- Only the Brave, a young woman comes to the Unit seeking help to prevent her boyfriend from killing someone as required for his initiation ceremony into a criminal Biker gang called the Braves, not to be confused with the aging bikers who haunt country lanes on Sunday afternoons in their Harley Davidson’s as someone mentions. In this instance rather than present the episode as it unfolds I shall begin Team unit leader, the adorable Amanda Redman whose character Sandra has just about coped with the suicide of her policeman father when she was only 24 years of age, following corruption allegations. Her personal relationship with men suffered as a consequence so she remains married to her work and the Unit. She was once regarded as the bright star in the policing firmament destined for greatness and not for managing the unit however good their work in solving cold cases. She is brought to face her situation, clearing up the mess of others inferior to her, by a former junior to her who is heading a major crime unit on the track of the Braves who are part of an International Drug trafficking network with Biker gangs in Holland and Scandinavia. He taunts her about her present situation, especially when he asks her to drop the investigation because it could compromise his long investigation and she readily agrees.
She is willing to do so, in part, because Jack, who now plays her confidante father figure, was against commencing the investigation because of the lack of evidence and in part because of professionalism in not wanting to undermine the work of her former colleague. Obviously she would pass on to the current crime investigations unit the allegation that a named individual was out to kill a member of a rival gang...... (with in mind the decision to stop and arrest an individual in Tottenham a month ago because of information he was on his way to undertake a similar crime, and which in that instance proved the catalyst for a criminal insurrection).
It is Jack who insists that his colleagues stay back at the office and work out the solution to the mystery when Sandra is put under pressure and willing to walk away from further involvement. Jack is played by former When the Boat Comes, Likely lad and my favourite character of all as the school teacher in the Beiderbecke Tapes-- James Bolam. He is the head of the trio having been a former Chief Superintendent of Detectives, the same rank Sandra.
The girl who approached the Unit is the daughter of a motor cycle parts supply business one of whose major clients is the Braves although the owner is not a willing participant in their criminal activities. The boyfriend is the son of a man who the police and everyone connected to with the Braves believes was the victim of a fight with a member of a rival gang. The serious crime squad unit head reveals that because of the placement of an uncover officer with a rival gang; they were not responsible for the death although this information cannot be used for obvious reasons to prevent the boyfriend completing his initiation assignment. There is a clue in what he says.
What emerges is that the boy’s father had discovered that the police informant within the gang was a senior figure who had named and killed someone else as the “grass”. It is not just the Cosa Nostra which insists on the vow of silence. This other colleague was also supposed to be killed in a gang fight although it took place outside a pub used by the Braves and just across from their base and which in normal circumstances would have led to a major fight between the gangs involved.
The main twist and red herring in the story is that the wife of the murdered father had set up home with head of the Braves a man who had got away with several crimes because of the intimidation of witnesses. The daughter had witnessed the couple coming out of a room months before the killing whereas the couple claimed they had only got together a couple of months after the death. One assumption was that the father had died either confronting the former friend about the affair or he had been murdered in order that the couple could live together openly. When the Unit visit the former wife they find she is a nasty piece of work and later she is responsible for scarring the face of the daughter for having asked the unit to intervene, but where did the leak come from? What is only discovered at the end, separately by the trio and Amanda is that the police informant is an undercover police officer which is why the serious crimes unit head is unable to believe that he is responsible for either of the killings, until he works out that he advised his officer that the daughter had come to the unit and that it could only have been his officer who informed the former wife and mother of the girl’s boyfriend. None of them realised that the deputy head of the Braves was a police undercover man had become a criminal murdering others to protect himself. Such indeed is reality.
The consequence of this is that any information obtained from him could not be used in court and therefore the major investigation has been wasted, and for which there will be an inquiry and although the serious crimes unit head was not implicated it happened on his watch so his career will be damaged.
The reason why the team was able to crack the case is that they visited the daughter in hospital and saw the father again. It is she who takes the initiative in being willing to give evidence against her attacker and her father is then is willing to give evidence against the undercover police officer. Separately after the team work on the son he has an arm badly burned by acid and kicked out of the Braves for questioning the past and has threatened Sandra with a gun for not protecting his girlfriend. He had been a tearaway in the past and known to the police but he had turned the new leaf because of the relationship with the girl. Sandra by various means escapes from the young man who is also willing to testify.. It ends well with villains captured and the young able to start ona new life together. Ah!
In the third mystery Half Life a man is found dead in an alley by a hotel, discovered by a staff member from the restaurant going out for a quick smoke while waiting to clear a table where a customer sat drinking cups of coffee as if waiting for someone. (Big Clue) The girl has seen a car which she thought was dark blue but otherwise was vague on all aspects.
Alun has developed a sleeping problem which is upsetting and disturbing his wife who demands that he does something about it, as does the unit leader, Amanda Redman because he is arriving at work tired and continuing tired during the rest of the day. The others suggest remedies from hot milk with honey and sunflower and sesame seeds to baking clothing in the microwave until hot and wrapping these around one to create a sense of warmth and comfort. None of these work so he is forced to go to the “quackery” of a hypnotist. This works and he has the idea of using the hypnotist to see if the hotel worker could remember anything and she is able to remember the full number of a car.
Before this it had emerged that the dead man had been in a witness protection programme after giving evidence against a former associate drug dealer who continues to serve a long prison sentence and who had sung from the dock the Vera Lynn song We’ll meet again. The Unit had suspected he was being hidden when they found out that he had moved into the area just six weeks before his death and allocated a three bedroom Council property to himself. The disappearance had not been noticed by the police at the time.
The case had become a cold case investigation when someone had identified who the dead man through a Web site trying to locate missing people or people to be identified. The Unit had been had been able to find out that he had been give a job as a mechanic for a local garage/car dealers firm where the owner and his wife who worked in the office claimed they knew little about the man or his background.
The Unit speaks to a workmate who had some contact outside of work limited because while he was married with a family, the dead man was something of a ladies man. ( Big Clue) I cannot remember the sequence of events which led the team to finding out that the man had a relationship with the daughter of man he sent to prison through his evidence. She presented as a hardened young woman grateful that she had not become over involved but remarkably cool about his betrayal of her father and his death. This added to the belief that although in prison her father had arranged the murder
The team tracked down one associate who had become a club bouncer doorman and found out that he had visited someone else in the same prison as the main suspect. He admits to giving the message that he had been approached by the dead man asking if he was interest in getting involved in drug trafficking via former contacts in Holland. He had not wanted to get involved but had wanted to let his form boss know his position in case it became known he had the contact and had not reported.
The hotel waitress had been shown photographs of a Dutch man who had stayed at the hotel at the time of the death and was known to be part a of Dutch trafficking gang but she recognises the man as the individual sitting at the table drinking coffee. He therefore had to be eliminated from the murder inquiry.
Through the number plate the vehicle is traced to that of a teacher but was originally issued by the garage where the man worked and where the car had been taken to the garage for service on the day of the death. The flowers are reported to have been left at the grave of the man since he had been identified and a description of the woman appeared to be close to that of the wife of the garage owner. She had originally claimed to have known nothing about him but is forced by the evidence to admit she had a brief affair. She had been away at the time using the only car owned by the couple. This was the great flaw in the episode given that her husband was a car dealer. The other twist is that had he not intervened it is likely that the Dutchman had been sent to kill the man via the man from prison! He would have been the trouble and prison.
The team become anxious about the national police cuts in expenditure and fear for their future. Sandra makes inquiries and is reassured that at present management has not included the unit on any of their lists.
I cannot remember in which episode Dennis Waterman visits an ex policeman and finds him living in a house with gardens way beyond his former pay grade and this immediately raises suspicions. The property came with the wife that he married. For Dennis Waterman married several times in real life as well as in the series he comments about missed opportunity and that perhaps it is still not too late. Sandra comments that he is such a great catch now. Dennis was a former Police Inspector in the series. And therefore not the wide boy he played in the Minder series with George Cole.
This brings to the final show of the season Tiger Tiger. A zoo keep had been mauled and eaten by his favourite Tiger but then blood had been found in his accommodation which indicated that he had been killed and then put in the animal enclosure.
The whole team visit the zoo and are met by the experienced female public relations officer with a plum in her mouth, instantly dislikeable, covering up and an immediate suspect, but I thought not.
A fascinating story emerges of a group of young people who formed a double dare club drawing straws with matches of different sizes as to who should undertake the dangerous exercise of the day, The young man who died has a Spanish mother who has kept some of things in a box and this includes a USB drive which includes clips of some dares and a photo of a naked couple making love on a balcony. The young man in the photo is tracked down as a dare devil doctor who died in a delayed parachute opening jump. His girl friend is tracked down and she has also become a doctor but denies any knowledge or involvement although her story is eventually broken down and the truth revealed.
Before then there are a couple of twists! The lion had died shortly after the incident and the blade of a knife had been found inside and to be Spanish made blade. The murdered young man had been to the running with bulls in Pamplona. The murdered man also frequented a DVD hire store and the big clue comes when a member of team points out that someone must have been taking the films and photos that as yet remains unidentified. The shop also sells high quality film camera equipment
In relation to the team members the focus is on Jack again who is told thatis to receive a Commissioner’s Commendation because of his intervention in two situations where his life was at risk. Jack is not pleased with the award and shows every indication of missing the black tie dinner award ceremony.
Jack has the case on his mind because the man identified as the security guard at the zoo is someone Jack knows who was a member of the force and it appears that Jack somehow protected him. He has no respect for this man and is therefore suspicious when the man claims to have no knowledge of what happened on the night of the death. Later when the case is solved Jack discloses that the man is his brother in law and that he saved the man from disgrace because the event coincided with the death of his wife and he had not wanted to add to suffering of his former partner. The brother in law admits he had taken a bribe to let the dare devils in so the remaining members are brought in for questioning.
It is revealed that the murdered man got the short straw (match) and gone into the cage but instead of the animal being asleep it had woken up and gone for the man before he could get out of the cage. One of the group, the owner/manager of the store, had used a knife to stop the animal in its tracks but their colleague had been injured. Everyone had run off but one of the group had gone back, the shop man.
Previously on being first approached he had disclosed he was previously known to the police having helped out in a case, a case of where someone was found dead with a couple of digits missing. Inquiries were made and two other deaths were discovered with what appeared to be small body part souvenirs taken. While holding the man at the police station the Unit does a thorough search of the shop and accommodation above without finding anything incriminating. Then someone notices four video cassette boxes and these are found to contain the souvenir body parts.
Jack explains why he did not want to attend the awards dinner and concentrated on solving the case. Since the death of his wife he had not felt continued living worth while and longed to be able to join her in the afterlife. In the instances of the award events he had acted without disregard for his life accordingly and he could not promise not to take the similar approach again. Embarrassed by his failure to attend the ceremony the Commanding officer questions if Jack is up to the job anymore, suggesting he may not be available for the next series, or perhaps his health is in question and this paves the way for an untimely departure
In the Gentleman vanishes the team are asked to investigate the missing husband by his wife after she receives a series of emails from a firm in Switzerland who continue to work on the concept of cold fusion on which her husband worked and had claimed a breakthrough before his disappearance.
A feature of the series is the explanation of the technical aspects of policing work and as in this situation of a highly technical subject which could have been the cause of the disappearance. For the record Cold Fusion was a concept introduced by two scientists in 1989 who claimed that on a table top experiment they had in effect created the potential for a cheap source of energy replacing dependence on the need for a continuous supply of oil and gas. That one of those involved was a world wide recognised authority in his subject aroused the interest of government as well as the scientific community but their discovery was quickly consigned to pathological science with accusations of flawed experimentation and impossible difficulties in achieve the objective.
Cynics and conspiracy theorists continue to claim that such would be the impact of the discovery that not just existing energy producers would oppose and seek to silence such a development but the present nature of the world economy and therefore state power would be turned upside down that the G20 powers collectively would seek to stop development or equally individually seek to gain control.
In the programme the scientist disappeared on a train to Paris during a brief period of four seconds as he walked to the buffet car to buy something for a blind man seated across the gangway and who had engaged him in conversation. He or someone had taken up the hotel booking in Paris but had not turned up for the conference he was attending as replacement for his collaborationist whose home had been broken into and among the possessions taken was his passport. As became revealed when his wife was interviewed he was a man increasingly absorbed in his work, disliked confined spaces such a as planes and tunnels, hence to the use of a standard train from London to Dover and Ferry, coping with arrangements and household activities. His wife who would have usually accompanied me on such a venture had been unable to do so because of the short notice. There are several flaws in this aspect of the story as there are in every story line once time is taken to examine the plots. This never matters.
What happens next is that the officer responsible for the Team is approach by a former colleague, old school friends and all that in the supermarket and invited to a meal at his club/restaurant to enjoy Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska and then casually, as one does, offer official advice which is open to interpretation as a warning off, or an official interest in finding an answer, and this included giving the name of an individual which the team quickly find appears to have no record or no connection with those identified with the missing Professor. There is a delightful moment towards the end when the unit head confronts his friend who admits he is involved with UK intelligence that most of what is done is pointless. I think not.
As is the custom the team gradually unravel what actually happened going through several twists and turns and red herrings. In this instance they make progress after discovering that the blind man is a confidence trickster, now in prison, and who is consequently persuaded to disclose that all he was asked to do was to pose as a blind man on the train and at an agreed time engage the professor in conversation and ask for something to be obtained from the buffet. He was then asked to pose as the Professor at the booked hotel and then come forward as a witness once the disappearance was reported in the media. The second flaw is that given the circumstances and background of the Professor he would have been met at the railway station in Paris and then taken to the arranged Hotel and looked after until the presentation of the Paper. It would have become immediately known that he never reached the Continent
The con man received instruction dropped at his home in the middle of the night as was the payment in cash. When he is forced to reveal who recruited him for the job the man named is murdered at the public house just as where two members of the unit have approached to question.
The team have also interviewed the research assistant who worked with the Professor but had lost her job when the unit was closed following the disappearance. She appears to be in a relationship with an older woman who shares her flat and is anti police because being an environmental activist she opposes the police approach to past activities. She is also a computer expert. Clue.
The team go back to his wife because they believe that there is something which she has not revealed. She admits that she had met an on line contact through a web site she had some responsibility and because her husbands aversion to normal social activities she had enjoyed drinks and meals with the man and this had led to sex. She is confident this had nothing to with the disappearance of her husband. I cannot remember in which order she mentioned that he had broken off the relationship shortly after the husband had gone missing but after they had spent a night together on the day when her husband was scheduled to be in Paris that she had tried to get into contact but found the telephone number disconnected and the email returned. That she did not put two and two together is another flaw in the story line. It is when they asked for information about the man that she reveals his name, the same name as given by the Government Intelligence man.
Their suspicions are confirmed when on visiting property in the name of the individual and a shell company they find a camera above the bed and an coaxial cable down to the basement where they also find a metal chair fixed to the ground which the obvious conclusion that the man had to watch his wife commit adultery shattering his whole world resulting in his giving the information wanted and then he was killed and buried in the garden. The aspect which again flawed the story was that having gone to the trouble of removing furniture and television they had not removed the camera the cable or the chair or more effectively buried the body.
Jack, I think it was, leans on a former computer hacker who he had previously saved from prison and who therefore owes him and who had established a business advising firms how to be secure against hackers to find out who had sent the emails and if they were genuine. He is able to confirm authenticity but using methods which cannot be used in court. He advises that only one individual could have entered the computer system of the Swiss based firm and redirected the emails to the wife of the Professor. Someone with the handle Nail Tails who could do the job. This leads them back to the computer friend anti police of the former assistant to the Professor who admits her friend has left and admitted she had lied about everything told her. They find in effect a confession and a photo of missing suspect. What happened is that she had been recruited because of her environmental interest with a view to securing the information so that it would be used for the benefit of everyone, such was also the view of the Professor and she had been on the train to pull the communication chord to take the man off. However she had no idea the intention was to torture and kill him and had gone into hiding to plan her revenge.
Confronting the Government Intelligence man again the unit chief learns that the wanted man is a rogue agent who had gone private and that he and the accomplice on the train who had murdered the recruiter in the pub would be arriving at St Pancras from the continent in the morning and the unit is free to pick them up. However the rogue agent is executed by Nine Tails who gets her revenge. The Intelligence man had mentioned his interest in ancient mythology which turns out to be a fox with nine tails and the name under Nine Tails was known to her flat mate was A Fox.
As I have said many times the joy of the programmes are the three male characters that form the unit of rehired former detective Alun Armstrong plays an obsessive recovering alcoholic, former Detective Sergeant, with the skill is connecting the dots in ways which others only come to long after- if they ever do. In this programme the picture painted of the professor is that of a man continuously living within his own world with only his wife able to influence and who provides security and domesticity. This could be Brian with Ester his wife having expressed at times her frustration, loneliness and unhappiness as she feels she is acting more as his mother than as lover and partner, something which the wife of the Professor also expresses in this episode.
PS and it is a big one. In the series the Cold Fusion idea for which the Professor is murdered does not work. At least that is consistent with reality.
In episode 8 of the series- Only the Brave, a young woman comes to the Unit seeking help to prevent her boyfriend from killing someone as required for his initiation ceremony into a criminal Biker gang called the Braves, not to be confused with the aging bikers who haunt country lanes on Sunday afternoons in their Harley Davidson’s as someone mentions. In this instance rather than present the episode as it unfolds I shall begin Team unit leader, the adorable Amanda Redman whose character Sandra has just about coped with the suicide of her policeman father when she was only 24 years of age, following corruption allegations. Her personal relationship with men suffered as a consequence so she remains married to her work and the Unit. She was once regarded as the bright star in the policing firmament destined for greatness and not for managing the unit however good their work in solving cold cases. She is brought to face her situation, clearing up the mess of others inferior to her, by a former junior to her who is heading a major crime unit on the track of the Braves who are part of an International Drug trafficking network with Biker gangs in Holland and Scandinavia. He taunts her about her present situation, especially when he asks her to drop the investigation because it could compromise his long investigation and she readily agrees.
She is willing to do so, in part, because Jack, who now plays her confidante father figure, was against commencing the investigation because of the lack of evidence and in part because of professionalism in not wanting to undermine the work of her former colleague. Obviously she would pass on to the current crime investigations unit the allegation that a named individual was out to kill a member of a rival gang...... (with in mind the decision to stop and arrest an individual in Tottenham a month ago because of information he was on his way to undertake a similar crime, and which in that instance proved the catalyst for a criminal insurrection).
It is Jack who insists that his colleagues stay back at the office and work out the solution to the mystery when Sandra is put under pressure and willing to walk away from further involvement. Jack is played by former When the Boat Comes, Likely lad and my favourite character of all as the school teacher in the Beiderbecke Tapes-- James Bolam. He is the head of the trio having been a former Chief Superintendent of Detectives, the same rank Sandra.
The girl who approached the Unit is the daughter of a motor cycle parts supply business one of whose major clients is the Braves although the owner is not a willing participant in their criminal activities. The boyfriend is the son of a man who the police and everyone connected to with the Braves believes was the victim of a fight with a member of a rival gang. The serious crime squad unit head reveals that because of the placement of an uncover officer with a rival gang; they were not responsible for the death although this information cannot be used for obvious reasons to prevent the boyfriend completing his initiation assignment. There is a clue in what he says.
What emerges is that the boy’s father had discovered that the police informant within the gang was a senior figure who had named and killed someone else as the “grass”. It is not just the Cosa Nostra which insists on the vow of silence. This other colleague was also supposed to be killed in a gang fight although it took place outside a pub used by the Braves and just across from their base and which in normal circumstances would have led to a major fight between the gangs involved.
The main twist and red herring in the story is that the wife of the murdered father had set up home with head of the Braves a man who had got away with several crimes because of the intimidation of witnesses. The daughter had witnessed the couple coming out of a room months before the killing whereas the couple claimed they had only got together a couple of months after the death. One assumption was that the father had died either confronting the former friend about the affair or he had been murdered in order that the couple could live together openly. When the Unit visit the former wife they find she is a nasty piece of work and later she is responsible for scarring the face of the daughter for having asked the unit to intervene, but where did the leak come from? What is only discovered at the end, separately by the trio and Amanda is that the police informant is an undercover police officer which is why the serious crimes unit head is unable to believe that he is responsible for either of the killings, until he works out that he advised his officer that the daughter had come to the unit and that it could only have been his officer who informed the former wife and mother of the girl’s boyfriend. None of them realised that the deputy head of the Braves was a police undercover man had become a criminal murdering others to protect himself. Such indeed is reality.
The consequence of this is that any information obtained from him could not be used in court and therefore the major investigation has been wasted, and for which there will be an inquiry and although the serious crimes unit head was not implicated it happened on his watch so his career will be damaged.
The reason why the team was able to crack the case is that they visited the daughter in hospital and saw the father again. It is she who takes the initiative in being willing to give evidence against her attacker and her father is then is willing to give evidence against the undercover police officer. Separately after the team work on the son he has an arm badly burned by acid and kicked out of the Braves for questioning the past and has threatened Sandra with a gun for not protecting his girlfriend. He had been a tearaway in the past and known to the police but he had turned the new leaf because of the relationship with the girl. Sandra by various means escapes from the young man who is also willing to testify.. It ends well with villains captured and the young able to start ona new life together. Ah!
In the third mystery Half Life a man is found dead in an alley by a hotel, discovered by a staff member from the restaurant going out for a quick smoke while waiting to clear a table where a customer sat drinking cups of coffee as if waiting for someone. (Big Clue) The girl has seen a car which she thought was dark blue but otherwise was vague on all aspects.
Alun has developed a sleeping problem which is upsetting and disturbing his wife who demands that he does something about it, as does the unit leader, Amanda Redman because he is arriving at work tired and continuing tired during the rest of the day. The others suggest remedies from hot milk with honey and sunflower and sesame seeds to baking clothing in the microwave until hot and wrapping these around one to create a sense of warmth and comfort. None of these work so he is forced to go to the “quackery” of a hypnotist. This works and he has the idea of using the hypnotist to see if the hotel worker could remember anything and she is able to remember the full number of a car.
Before this it had emerged that the dead man had been in a witness protection programme after giving evidence against a former associate drug dealer who continues to serve a long prison sentence and who had sung from the dock the Vera Lynn song We’ll meet again. The Unit had suspected he was being hidden when they found out that he had moved into the area just six weeks before his death and allocated a three bedroom Council property to himself. The disappearance had not been noticed by the police at the time.
The case had become a cold case investigation when someone had identified who the dead man through a Web site trying to locate missing people or people to be identified. The Unit had been had been able to find out that he had been give a job as a mechanic for a local garage/car dealers firm where the owner and his wife who worked in the office claimed they knew little about the man or his background.
The Unit speaks to a workmate who had some contact outside of work limited because while he was married with a family, the dead man was something of a ladies man. ( Big Clue) I cannot remember the sequence of events which led the team to finding out that the man had a relationship with the daughter of man he sent to prison through his evidence. She presented as a hardened young woman grateful that she had not become over involved but remarkably cool about his betrayal of her father and his death. This added to the belief that although in prison her father had arranged the murder
The team tracked down one associate who had become a club bouncer doorman and found out that he had visited someone else in the same prison as the main suspect. He admits to giving the message that he had been approached by the dead man asking if he was interest in getting involved in drug trafficking via former contacts in Holland. He had not wanted to get involved but had wanted to let his form boss know his position in case it became known he had the contact and had not reported.
The hotel waitress had been shown photographs of a Dutch man who had stayed at the hotel at the time of the death and was known to be part a of Dutch trafficking gang but she recognises the man as the individual sitting at the table drinking coffee. He therefore had to be eliminated from the murder inquiry.
Through the number plate the vehicle is traced to that of a teacher but was originally issued by the garage where the man worked and where the car had been taken to the garage for service on the day of the death. The flowers are reported to have been left at the grave of the man since he had been identified and a description of the woman appeared to be close to that of the wife of the garage owner. She had originally claimed to have known nothing about him but is forced by the evidence to admit she had a brief affair. She had been away at the time using the only car owned by the couple. This was the great flaw in the episode given that her husband was a car dealer. The other twist is that had he not intervened it is likely that the Dutchman had been sent to kill the man via the man from prison! He would have been the trouble and prison.
The team become anxious about the national police cuts in expenditure and fear for their future. Sandra makes inquiries and is reassured that at present management has not included the unit on any of their lists.
I cannot remember in which episode Dennis Waterman visits an ex policeman and finds him living in a house with gardens way beyond his former pay grade and this immediately raises suspicions. The property came with the wife that he married. For Dennis Waterman married several times in real life as well as in the series he comments about missed opportunity and that perhaps it is still not too late. Sandra comments that he is such a great catch now. Dennis was a former Police Inspector in the series. And therefore not the wide boy he played in the Minder series with George Cole.
This brings to the final show of the season Tiger Tiger. A zoo keep had been mauled and eaten by his favourite Tiger but then blood had been found in his accommodation which indicated that he had been killed and then put in the animal enclosure.
The whole team visit the zoo and are met by the experienced female public relations officer with a plum in her mouth, instantly dislikeable, covering up and an immediate suspect, but I thought not.
A fascinating story emerges of a group of young people who formed a double dare club drawing straws with matches of different sizes as to who should undertake the dangerous exercise of the day, The young man who died has a Spanish mother who has kept some of things in a box and this includes a USB drive which includes clips of some dares and a photo of a naked couple making love on a balcony. The young man in the photo is tracked down as a dare devil doctor who died in a delayed parachute opening jump. His girl friend is tracked down and she has also become a doctor but denies any knowledge or involvement although her story is eventually broken down and the truth revealed.
Before then there are a couple of twists! The lion had died shortly after the incident and the blade of a knife had been found inside and to be Spanish made blade. The murdered young man had been to the running with bulls in Pamplona. The murdered man also frequented a DVD hire store and the big clue comes when a member of team points out that someone must have been taking the films and photos that as yet remains unidentified. The shop also sells high quality film camera equipment
In relation to the team members the focus is on Jack again who is told thatis to receive a Commissioner’s Commendation because of his intervention in two situations where his life was at risk. Jack is not pleased with the award and shows every indication of missing the black tie dinner award ceremony.
Jack has the case on his mind because the man identified as the security guard at the zoo is someone Jack knows who was a member of the force and it appears that Jack somehow protected him. He has no respect for this man and is therefore suspicious when the man claims to have no knowledge of what happened on the night of the death. Later when the case is solved Jack discloses that the man is his brother in law and that he saved the man from disgrace because the event coincided with the death of his wife and he had not wanted to add to suffering of his former partner. The brother in law admits he had taken a bribe to let the dare devils in so the remaining members are brought in for questioning.
It is revealed that the murdered man got the short straw (match) and gone into the cage but instead of the animal being asleep it had woken up and gone for the man before he could get out of the cage. One of the group, the owner/manager of the store, had used a knife to stop the animal in its tracks but their colleague had been injured. Everyone had run off but one of the group had gone back, the shop man.
Previously on being first approached he had disclosed he was previously known to the police having helped out in a case, a case of where someone was found dead with a couple of digits missing. Inquiries were made and two other deaths were discovered with what appeared to be small body part souvenirs taken. While holding the man at the police station the Unit does a thorough search of the shop and accommodation above without finding anything incriminating. Then someone notices four video cassette boxes and these are found to contain the souvenir body parts.
Jack explains why he did not want to attend the awards dinner and concentrated on solving the case. Since the death of his wife he had not felt continued living worth while and longed to be able to join her in the afterlife. In the instances of the award events he had acted without disregard for his life accordingly and he could not promise not to take the similar approach again. Embarrassed by his failure to attend the ceremony the Commanding officer questions if Jack is up to the job anymore, suggesting he may not be available for the next series, or perhaps his health is in question and this paves the way for an untimely departure
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