I was more impressed by The Lost Child, the third of he four George Gently’s which deals with adoption and parenthood and where I have knowledge of the position of Adoption Agencies at this time, dominated in the North East by those managed for the Church of England and the Catholic Church in the North East, both locked in tradition but nevertheless providing a high quality service.
In this episode a child is snatched from its home while cared for by the father turns out to have been adopted thus focussing on a society which appears to have run by one woman (Mrs Dunwoody played by the excellent Alison Steadman) without the usual committee and other controlling influences although in fairness the organising sector/ director could be a powerful person if they were long standing and respected member of the community. The child is eventually recovered but returned to its single parent mother and not the couple.
For a time suspicion about the fate of the baby had focussed on the adopting father because he had not wanted a child so late in their married lives and had insisted on the girl rather than a twin brother because a girl would mean his role would less than that with a son. Suspicion then rightly falls on the young man who had been meeting his wife in secret but he turns out to be the first child of the woman, a son who she had placed for adoption when the father, the subsequent husband had gone to war and it appeared would not be returning. The odd aspect here is how the young man was able to trace his mother because it was not until 1975 that adopted people when aged 18 years could commence to locate their natural parents.
The young man had wanted to be introduced to his father but the mother played by the brilliant actress Helen Baxendale had been worried at the implications of her decision. The young man is accidentally killed from a blow struck by the Sergeant when attempting to arrest him and rescue the baby.
The episode provides the opportunity to explore Bacchus the parent now that his wife had divorced him and living with a new partner and the relationship that he has with his father, with the brutal and telling sentence (You were never much of as a son, but you are a spectacularly useless dad). However after the death he is able to turn to his father for solace.
For Gently his attention is on the adoption society and the way it is run forcing the mothers to agree to adoption and taking sums from prospective couples as voluntary charitable donations. An earlier sub story is that the husband had an affair and nearly, left his wife at one point and the role of an assistant at the hone who had been a young mother forced to give up a child and now lives with the mother of the twins placed for adoption and who blows the whistle on her employer.
The fourth and possible the last of Gently series, although having moved the filming to Northumbria it is difficult to accept this is so. In Gently in the Cathedral his history within the Metropolitan Police comes back to haunt him when he left having accused several colleagues of being career criminals. This is now well documented and covered particularly in the series Our Friends in the North. I became aware of the situation through a young former constable I knew who moved to the North East because of the situation in London. However it is the fact that he has put away a Northern based criminal for ten years that is the catalyst which leads to a young policeman being murdered and dressed as suicide because of alleged corruption because he came across the getting rid of a London based detective who had come north to investigate a criminal racket with ties between London and the North East.
The imprisoned man gains his freedom when evidence is first provided that Gently had falsified evidence to convict and that he is corrupt and then implicated in the death of the London detective when a weapon found at his home is that used to kill the undercover man and there is also a link between the constable who is said to have committed suicide and Gently. The case is so strong that Gently is placed in prison and then an attempt made on his life after his release achieved by the female Defence Counsel who got the villain released who then provides a refuge for Gently after he is wounded and it is her factotum who perishes to the assassins bullet. There is the suggestion of a serious relationship between her and Gently if he survives the challenges facing him
What of Sergeant Bacchus in all this? He is already on his way to the Met as he thinks when he is invited to attend an interview. He is told that Gently stopped his previous efforts by a reference which said he was too impressionable, fearing he would become corrupted by the evil forces there.
When he goes to London he finds that there is no job yet and that they wanted him to be the inside man on the team to get Gently. The episode provides an opportunity for the former Morse Detective Sergeant Lewis, now Inspector Lewes, and Kevin Whately to have an important role as a man forced out of the Met into retirement because of his alleged concerns about corruption and who now also lives in the North in retirement. He calls on Gently to give support and leave him a gun for self protection. He is therefore the man to fit him for the murder and for corruption Gently realises he has misjudged the man when he visits and finds that he is living in a palatial home with staff. Later he learns it is Wheatley who the man pulling all the strings once he realised the London detective is on to him.
Gently goes on the run and the London team press Bacchus who although begins to have doubts about the situation into revealing where Gently could be hiding out. This is with his former wife and her family and his suspicion and that that of the London team appears confirmed when they find she is leaving her home with lots of food and other supplies. The family are in fact going on holiday to rented property. The second idea is the widow of the framed policeman who had discovered the disposing of the body of the London detective. Gently has been camping rough nearby and coming to her home in Northumberland for supplies.
It is here there the first of two confrontations when Bacchus and one of the London team realise that their leader and another are the villains and responsible for the murder of their colleagues as well as framing George. There is a shoot out in which the London men are all killed and Gently leaves Bacchus unarmed to clear up the mess while he goes off after the villain who framed him, still concerned at the loyalty and potential behaviour of his sergeant.
Calling at the hotel where the man he is staying who he believes is in charge of developments he is given a message to meet in the Cathedral in Durham City. Bacchus also arrives at the hotel unarmed and both his arrival alone and unarmed is a possible flaw in the storyline although another view is that he wants to make amends for his previous doubts and giving assistance to villains within the police force. He checks the room and finds the villain shot in the end. We the audience know that the real villain, the boss, is the former Detective who posed as his friend and ally, something I suspected early on, especially when having said he would walk all the way with George he was immediately absent when his trap was sprung.
There is an extraordinary finale in which Whately uses a high power riffle to shoot at George in the Cathedral with bullets sprayed into objects of art and religious icons. The episodes and series ends with all three appearing mortally wounded with Bacchus telling George he was on his side and George apologising for leaving him without a gun.
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