I begin the catch up with Series 9 of New Tricks the cold case series which featured three of my favourite characters actors of all time. Alun Armstrong plays the recovering alcoholic and brains of the trio of former police officer brought in to help head of team Angela Redmond and her boss solve long standing mysteries where a new event or evidence results in a renewed investigation. Former Minder Dennis Waterman always with one eye on the ladies plays a thrice married former Detective while the man with wisdom and right hand man to the team leader was Likely Lad James Bolam. I say was because the first episode opens with Jack taking mystery phone calls and announcing he is leaving the team. Eventually he discloses to Brian with whom he had an important relationship, more for Brian and himself, that he has only weeks to live and has decided to spend the time at a clinic close the area where he and his wife had one of their happiest times. This affects Brian deeply especially being sworn not to tell the others until afterwards.
According to the available information Jack revealed his intention to leave when the BBC announced they were commissioning series 9 and 10. This aspect made the actual story secondary. A Whitehall representative of the Secret Services insists that the team investigate a 160 year old murder mystery having to blackmail them first into undertaking the work and then insisting that their records on what they discover are handed over.
At the root of this case is a Machiavellian attempt by the government at arms length to prevent a contract being confirmed because the evidence of the murder case suggests that the family money on which the contractor built up their position was based on murder and fraud? Jack who now has nothing to lose is responsible for the leak to a journalist which scuppers the contract. However it emerges that this was the intention all along.
In Old School Ties, a former pupil and now Member of Parliament is to open a new Computer Department with his Daughter another former pupil at the school now acting as his Secretary when a few days before the visit workmen excavating a site near the entrance to the school discover the remains of a Physical Education teacher who originated in New Zealand. His contract had ended and it was assumed he had returned to his homeland.
Time does not permit all the interesting twists and turns and red herrings. The head of the school is granddaughter of a racist, and as Brian points out despite as with other Private Schools, whatever their standing, they have become increasingly dependent on taking non white pupils from overseas to balance the books there are no non whites at the establishment. So how does the school survive and afford the latest computer department?
For the head of the school maintaining the principles of her family and the reputation of the school dominates all that she has done. The PE Teacher was very friendly with one young man who had found out that his girl friend was having an affair with the teacher. The young woman had been self abusive before this and it slowly emerges that she had a blazing row with her closest friend who had alleged she had slept with someone at the school, she admitted this was not true and to cover for the fact she had become fat which was itself a cover for something else.
The row was because between the disturbed girl believed the fat girl had also slept with the PE Teacher. She had then accused the PE Teacher who had honestly denied the accusation and when started to use the knife to harm herself the man had attempted to intervene and she had accidentally stabbed in. She had called the head that had helped her take the body into the woods outside school and bury it with the suggestion that the head had made sure the man was dead when in fact he might have survived the tab wound.
The former schoolboy friend of the PE teacher with the disturbed girl now his mistress had come under suspicion because of finding out about the relationship between the two.
However unrelated to this is the cause of one girl becoming disturbed and self harming, and the other becoming fat, quickly, and which forms the core of what happened subsequently. It emerged that the Member of Parliament had been a contemporary at the school, with the head and had a secret affair with the mother of the disturbed girl when she and his daughter were about 11 and 12 years of age. The story was that mother had been killed in a car accident which understandably affected her daughter greatly but also because the car had been found with its door unlocked something which was said never to have happened if the mother was in the car on her own or out with her daughter. This suggested someone else was in the car and had left the scene
It also emerged that the other girl had been asked to cover for her father that he had been in all night at home when she had seen him return and observed him crying. He had come back to house in the car of the head teacher who he had called from the scene of the accident. The Head had blackmailed the Member of Parliament who had become a Government Minister in arranging for those bidding for government contracts where his department had control to make substantial gifts to the school, including a wealthy Indian man who gained a £20 million contract who donated several hundred thousand to the school despite its racism.
An elderly Latin teacher of 35 years experience provided one red herring when it was discovered that he stole items of clothing and other mementoes from pupils and teachers alike over the past decade since the death of the PE teacher which he kept in a Lock up owned by a local developer whose men had dug up the remains of the PE teacher.
He explained his behaviour as evidence of his existence feeling unappreciated by other teachers and pupils for his work. He had been caught out by the PE teacher which had led to a row on the night of the man’s death,
This teacher of Latin had disclosed to the property developer sufficient of the dark deeds going on for him to pay for a detective to enter the school as a teacher. He has hoped to take over the school to convert into a country club.
The detective had died in a genuine road accident, I think this was separate from the other accident although could have been connected. In any event this happened before she was able to reveal the evidence.
In a further twist, the working class background Matron had got hold of CCTV showing the return the girl and the head leaving the school and then returning by a secret passageway. She had then used this as a means of getting her son a free place at school after he had been reported for drinking at the age of 12 and suspected of also taking drugs. So everyone was arrested and guilty of one thing or another.
All the members of the Team are affected by the absence of Jack particularly Brian who has become distant again from his wife who has to leave him for a few days to help out a relative. The episode closes with Brian unable to keep the burden of the knowledge to himself any longer. Meanwhile Angela is under pressure to advise on short listing the applicants to replace him. She is also finding this difficult to impossible.
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