"Hold your breath, sunshine."

Professionals DVD set 3



Recapped June 2008

This one? This one is a bucket-load of fun. It's a meaty episode, plot-driven and full of intrigue, and the banter positively sparkles. Fantastic.

We open on an average working day, just as Bodie and Doyle arrive at CI5 HQ. Doyle is driving today, in his white Ford Escort. Pioneers of the car pool, CI5, taking turns to pick each other up for work each day like this. Very ecologically friendly – they really are ahead of their time!

"Ah, another day, another dollar," Bodie cheerfully philosophises.
"Yeah," Doyle thoughtfully grunts. "That's about all we're getting. I'm going to ask Cowley for a rise."
Bodie snickers. "That's one way of getting yourself killed." Well said. Healthy respect of the Controller is to be encouraged – I'm sure Cowley would approve, should he overhear.



As the Lads head inside, we catch a quick glimpse of Cowley, already at his desk working hard. If we hadn't seen his home in previous episodes I'd doubt he actually had one, it is so rare to see him away from his office, no matter the hour.

Then we see someone else – their hand, at least – dialling a number on a public telephone.

Inside the building now, Bodie is still laughing as he and his partner exit the lift. "Well, you know what you'll get, don't you," he teases. Doyle expresses ignorance, thus giving Bodie his cue to launch into a wonderfully appalling impression of their glorious leader as Hitler. "Doyle. Do you realise how difficult it is running zis organisation on a restricted budget?"
"That's fantastic," Doyle mockingly deadpans. "Can you do a German accent?" Heh.
"What? Anyway, failing that, he'll hang you," Bodie happily continues, as they turn toward a set of double doors. "Not by the neck, either!"

Bodie is in a wonderful mood this morning; he's so much fun when he's like this. And Doyle's grouchy preoccupation with pay and expenses is a character trait that surfaces again and again through the show, a fabulous rare snippet of continuity.

"Course, the old man might not even be in yet, it's only half past seven," Bodie adds in voice over, as the camera shifts back to Cowley, at his desk. I'm not sure what Bodie's been smoking this morning – surely he knows that Cowley is always in his office! Maybe the earliness of the hour has addled his brain – half past seven is pretty early to be starting the working day, by any standards. I wonder if it is standard practice for CI5 agents to start their shift at that time, or if there is a particular reason for the Lads to be going in early today. Whatever that particular reason might be, they aren't going to get to it!

Outside, the mysterious caller continues to dial.

"No, he'll be in." Doyle demonstrates his familiarity with Cowley's habits. "Work mad, our Führer."

A random office girl wanders between the Lads on her way down the corridor in the opposite direction, and both Lads turn their heads in perfect unison to watch her go. Hee.

In his office, Cowley is still working. Outside, the mysterious caller finishes dialling. If I were a truly dedicated recapper, I'd have taken note of the number he dialled, but I didn't and I'm not going back to look at it again!

Cowley's phone rings, and he lifts the receiver without so much as glancing up from his paperwork, totally engrossed. "There's a bomb in your office," the mysterious caller announces by way of hello. "You've got thirty seconds."

Cowley's freezes. This was not how he expected to start his day.

"He'll be slogging away behind his desk," Doyle chuckles, as he and Bodie near another set of double doors. "Steam pouring –"

BANG!

An explosion rips through the building, sending our Lads flying. And oh, how I love the choreography of this moment, with Doyle's hands already raised to act out his impression of Cowley just as the double doors they are approaching are blown open in their faces.



All in all, this is a fabulous scene – one of my all-time favourite teasers.

Titles.

Post explosion, Bodie and Doyle sprint into the remains of Cowley's office and start tearing it apart in search of their Boss, and wow, the place is a mess. It's the total definition of that expression: 'the place looked like a bomb had hit it', literally in this case, and you've got to feel for Cowley. Whatever he was working on a moment ago was presumably some degree of important, but it's gone now. Always such a nuisance to lose work that can't be salvaged.

So, anyway, there is debris everywhere and fires simmering here and there as the Lads search the rubble for CI5's Controller, fearing the worst, only for Cowley himself to appear in the doorway, none the worse for wear, and announce that they won't find him under there. They are both surprised and relieved.



Later. The dust has barely settled, but already Forensics are on the job. It isn't quite the fine toothcomb work expected by modern standards, but such is the 70s. The funny little Forensics bloke who remains at the fringes of the forefront of the action for the remainder of the episode mulls over the debris in Cowley's office, while clarifying exactly what was said in the call Cowley took: that there was a bomb, that he had 30 seconds, and that 30 seconds later the bomb went off.

"Very generous. Thirty second warning," Bodie snarks.
"Well, it was, when you think about it," the Forensics chappy solemnly replies, pointing out that it might have been pushing it a little, but was better than no warning at all.
"Well, obviously he didn't want you dead," Doyle rather angrily snips at Cowley, that anger telling its own tale regarding just how shaken he is by all this. "'Cause if he did, that's exactly what you'd be."

A female agent wanders into the room. Hey, it's Susan. Is this her first or second appearance in the show? It depends which line of continuity you follow: she is also in Dead Reckoning, which was filmed before this episode but aired later, and played a different character in Female Factor. She has a quiet word with Cowley, to which we are not privy, and then disappears again. Cowley turns back to his men to explain that there was a GPO man in the office the previous day, and there is only one man who has clearance: Murray. And it wasn't him.

So…if this Murray is the only GPO man with clearance to work in Cowley's office, how the hell did this other man get past security? Even if he had the appropriate paperwork, if it is known that Murray is the only one with authority surely someone should have challenged him and asked for more details? Such sloppiness does not become CI5! Cowley sends the Lads off to check out the Murray angle, since he is the only man who is supposed to be allowed in the room.

Recalling their earlier conversation, now that the immediate panic is over, on their way out Bodie calls back to Cowley to loudly remark that Doyle had something else he wanted to say. Hee. Thus put on the spot, Doyle umms and ahhs that it'll keep and hurries out.

"I've never noticed that before," Bodie cheerfully remarks as they reach the lift. "Streak of yellow down your back…" Whereupon Doyle pounces upon his partner and they scuffle like a pair of schoolboys as the lift doors close. Mwahahahah. I love it. The camaraderie between the partners in this episode is at its absolute best.



"Well, how was it done, Phillips?" Cowley enquires of the little Forensics chap, back in his office, and I am grateful to him for providing the man's name so early in the episode.

Phillips observes that 30 seconds is very precise, and puzzles aloud over the various possibilities: that the bomber could have fixed it so that Cowley activated the delay when he picked up the receiver, or it could be a straightforward time bomb, and he left it till the last minute to let Cowley know. Cowley brusquely asks which it was and, thus pressed into making a decisive analysis, Phillips decides that fixing the phone wouldn't make sense, not if it was set the previous afternoon and any number of calls could have come through in the meantime. "No, it was a time bomb. And, judging from the damage, you were sitting on it."

Fun. Way to encourage the Controller to look under his chair every time before he sits down.

Elsewhere in London. The camera is down the bottom of a manhole, looking up at a bright but cloudy sky. Bodie's voice loudly shouts for Murray to come up top a minute, and then our Lads appear up above, their faces framed by the manhole. There's some arty direction going on in this episode.



Murray grumps his unwillingness to stop what he's doing, and defensively insists, when asked, that of course he has his clearance on him. "So where were you yesterday afternoon?" Doyle chips in, ever the copper, cutting right to the chase.

We lose our mole's eye view, as the camera cuts back up top. Murray describes a rather dull previous day working on some office installation or other for the entire afternoon, and then his hand appears in shot, depositing a cup of tea on the road so he can extract himself from the hole in the ground. He hands over his clearance for inspection, offers up the three others on his team to vouch for his presence on that job, and wonders what this is all about. Doyle tells him that one of his blokes was wandering around Cowley's office the previous day and shouldn't have been. Murray innocently sniggers that Cowley must have given whoever this was a right working over, so Doyle further explains that Cowley wasn't there yesterday and that the point is that this GPO bloke used his job to get in. "And Murray, you're the only one with clearance," he menaces.

Murray rolls his eyes and points out that they don't know it was a genuine GPO man. "What you really mean is that he used overalls and a toolbox to get in." Ah, such faith in CI5 security is heart-warming! Just goes to show how much use the actual clearance is. He assures the Lads that whoever the intruder was, it wasn't him, and welcomes them to check his alibi. They most certainly will, Bodie promises, all affable menace.



Over at the GPO van, one of Murray's colleagues is rather alarmed when Bodie and Doyle appear on either side of him to question his and Murray's whereabouts the previous day. Ahhhh. It's Bill Treacher. Good old Arthur Fowler! Slightly perturbed by all the questioning, he obligingly offers details of when and where they were working, and who was with them – but the editing of this little scene is rather abrupt, as he cuts out mid-sentence, in the middle of one man's name. Not very neatly done.

Elsewhere in London, a car screeches to a halt outside a random block of flats. It's a couple more CI5 agents. You can tell by their reckless approach to the fine art of driving. Partners #1 and #2, who we will later come to know as Lake and Williams, conversationally exposit for us that Williams has an informant in these flats who reckons he's got something for them, although Lake is sceptical, since these leads have proved a monumental waste of time in the past. Williams is willing to hear the informant out, though, since you never know when he will turn up something important. He heads inside, and Lake stays with the car, muttering that: "the only thing that guy turns is my stomach." Heh.

Williams approaches the run-down flat in which he is to meet his informant with some caution, gun in hand. The door is open, but there is no sign of Informant Chris inside. There's a very obvious telephone in the foreground of the shot as he enters, subtly linking this scene to Cowley's telephone warning and the subsequent explosion in the teaser. Williams opens the curtains, and Lake, waiting in the car, sees him at the window. Williams continues to search the flat, but Chris is not there.

Outside, bored with waiting, Lake resorts to pulling faces at himself in the wing mirror and playing with his hair. Dork.

Inside, Williams finds a briefcase left on the table, and curiosity gets the better of him. He undoes the clasp.

BANG!

Outside, Lake is horrified to see a massive explosion rip through the flat his partner just entered. He leaps out of his car and sprints toward the blaze.



On the road, Doyle takes a call from Cowley over the R/T, directing the Lads to the scene. Off they drive at speed, Doyle executing a hurried u-turn around a handy nearby mini-roundabout with much screeching of tires. Stunt driving must have been so much fun for the actors.

At the council flats, the Lads approach the stairs, and there's more playful scuffling as they pass behind an unfortunately situated column, which rather unkindly blocks our view. They can afford to be playful right now, of course. They don't know yet that one of their colleagues has just been killed.

A large crowd has assembled to watch the live entertainment provided by the explosion and subsequent fire. The Lads sweep past civilians, police and firefighters completely unchallenged, and reach the doorway just as Susan stumbles out looking upset. "It was Williams," she tells them when Doyle asks what happened. That doesn't actually answer the question, but is all they need to hear. Each offering her a comforting pat on the shoulder, they hurry inside to find out more.

How far away were the Lads, then? It seems everyone has got here before them. Cowley and Phillips are combing through the wreckage, with Lake lurking morosely nearby, ranting angrily about Williams's informant, who lured him here to his death.

Outside, a mysterious someone watches through a pair of binoculars as Cowley sympathetically leads his bereaved agent out onto the balcony for some fresh air, away from the immediate scene of his partner's murder. Cowley asks if Williams had a girl. The answer is yes, and the prickly Lake insists that he be the one to give her the bad news. "It'll be better coming from me. It's not going to be good coming from anyone."

Still, it's nice to know that at least some CI5 agents are able to hold down a relationship for longer than five minutes!

Cowley heads back inside, leaving Lake alone to compose himself. Susan drifts past, offers him a moment of sympathy, and then follows Cowley back into the flat. I really like that this episode gives us a glimpse into the wider workings of CI5, that we get to see a number of different agents, and their relationships with one another and their Controller. It adds a lot of depth to the show.

Inside, Bodie and Doyle are now poking through the rubble with Phillips and Cowley. Bodie wonders about 'this Chris character', only for Cowley to inform him that Susan has already put the word out on the informant. Susan arrives to announce that there is a phone call for Cowley in the caretaker's flat, which he says is urgent. Thus summoned away, Cowley departs, and Phillips announces that there isn't anything more Bodie and Doyle can do here. Kind of makes you wonder why they were summoned in the first place, if there isn't anything for them to actually do when they get there, everyone else being so efficient. Dismissed, they head out.

Another long shot shows Cowley and Susan making their way to the caretaker's office. Cowley takes the call. "Hello, Cowley. How's Williams feeling these days?" says the voice at the other end. Cowley demands to know who it is. "I'm glad you got out of this morning's little exhibition, Cowley," continues the anonymous bomber, ignoring the question. "Because I want you to hear this: Williams is not going to be on his own for long. There'll be more like him. And somewhere, along the way, there'll be you." As the threat continues, we see a telephone lying on a table, the mouthpiece resting against a tape recorder playing the ominous message. Cowley fumes as he listens. "You won't know when. You won't know where. But it's coming, Cowley. You can count on it."

Doyle and Bodie make their way into the room to see their Controller looking extremely troubled.



Elsewhere in London, a car tears up to a random derelict building, screeches to a halt, and disgorges a couple of random CI5 agents.

"What did Billy say we'd find?" asks the one with the beard.
"Something 'beneficial to our careers'," his beardless partner explains.
"Ah. That's what I like about Billy," Beard sniffs. "So precise."

The partners sprint away to investigate the building. Just as they are out of earshot of the car, Cowley's voice comes crackling over the radio with the bomb alert, ordering all operatives to check in immediately.

There's a lot of fun, light-hearted banter as Beard and No-Beard explore the derelict building, demonstrated that Bodie and Doyle aren't the only CI5 partners fond of teasing one another. I really like the glimpse this episode gives us of the CI5 that exists beyond Our Lads, of the other agents and their partnerships.

Flats. Cowley receives news from HQ that they can't raise Matheson and King. So, we now have names for Beard and No-Beard, but still don't know which is which. The HQ agent continues that the missing agents were responding to a tip-off, and gives the address. Bodie and Doyle drift past at exactly the right moment for Cowley to send them off in search of their fellow agents.

Derelict Building. Matheson and King continue to search the joint, but can't find anything to make the effort even remotely worthwhile. Meanwhile, Bodie and Doyle screech their way across London. At the house, the disgruntled Matheson and King head back to their car, grumbling about what a waste of time that was and wondering what their informant was thinking, sending them out here.

No-Beard reaches the car first, his partner slipping on some rubbish as he follows, which prompts more banter. Just as Beard regains his feet, No-Beard puts the key in the ignition and turns it.

BANG! The car explodes, and Beard is close enough to the blast to be knocked off his feet once more.



Bodie and Doyle arrive just moments later and rush to their fallen colleague, who very helpfully mutters Billy's name and that they were set up before expiring.

Fire engines rush to the scene. Doyle and Bodie are grimly dismayed at the loss of two more of their fellow agents. This is a bad, bad day for CI5. Cowley arrives, and is equally shocked and horrified. The three can only look at one another, speechless, none of them having any words for this, and the scene is really nicely filmed and acted.




Doyle retrieves a notebook from Beard's pocket – just as well he wasn't as completely incinerated as his partner, eh – and puzzles over all the enigmatic initials contained therein. The letter B, he presumes, is Billy, and comes attached to an address, so the Lads decide to check it out. "The sooner the better," Bodie drawls. "Otherwise B for Billy is going to end up like C for Chris."

Phillips the little forensics chap has wandered up to the Lads, and scathingly remarks that he sometimes wonders why the agents protect 'these people' so well. "Yeah, well, sometimes they're worth it," Bodie angrily and defensively yells at his retreating back. That's an interesting little exchange, touching on the delicate balancing act that is the relationship between law enforcer and informant.

Railway sidings. Lake radios in that the car spotted by a couple of uniformed officers definitely belongs to the informant Chris.

Derelict building. Cowley relays this information to Bodie and Doyle, who decide that Billy can wait and hasten to provide backup for their grieving fellow agent. "Lucky old Billy," Phillips rather inappropriately jokes as they leave.

Railway sidings. The Lads join Lake, who, rather surprisingly given his anger and grief, has had the sense to wait for them before taking any action. The moment they arrive he hurries toward the car, his restless tension betraying his emotional state while the professional demeanour he maintains is admirable as he brings Bodie and Doyle up to speed on how the car was discovered. Bodie asks if he's checked it out yet. "No, and I don't intend to, either," he fervently assures them. There have been three bombings already today, and no one is anxious to trigger a fourth. Lake doesn't think Chris is around anywhere, but is determined to comb the place just in case he is.

The three agents split up to search the disused trains sitting idle in the sidings. It's a nicely edited little montage sequence that includes some very fetching shots of our Lads hauling themselves up into a couple of said trains for a closer look therein.




Bodie spots movement in the train alongside him and hurries across to investigate… In that other train, Doyle sees a flurry of movement heading his way and reacts instantly…and then the partners recognise one another and relax. Hee. They start toward one another, checking compartments along the way, and then Doyle whistles for his partner to join him, mission accomplished.

Informant Chris lies dead in a pool of blood and money. Since the agents had been hoping to extract some useful information from him, this is regarded with some not inconsiderable frustration. Doyle notes that the bullet came from the other train, and we can see that the window is shattered but still intact. He uses the butt of his gun to remove the broken glass, thus drawing Lake's attention and bringing him running.

As Lake arrives, Doyle picks up a handful of the blood money littering Chris's body and disgustedly notes that there must be a thousand quid. Lake bitterly repeats the sum, blood money paid for the betrayal of his partner.

Another nice shot, this time of the three agents stepping off the train in sprightly fashion. "'B' for Billy?" Doyle wonders again. Bodie suggests that they find out.

Street. Doyle and Bodie each take a moment to silently admire a pretty blonde woman who just happens to be passing as they park and lock the car. Those roving eyes of theirs are being given a good workout in this episode!

Building. Matheson and King's erstwhile informant, Billy, is primping in front of the mirror with a hairdryer. Hee. Bodie and Doyle carefully make their way up the winding staircase, anti-clockwise, artily filmed from above. They confirm that they are looking for number 15, and soon locate the appropriate room, arranging themselves on either side of the door.



Doyle knocks. Between the hairdryer and the music he's playing, Billy doesn't hear. Doyle knocks again. Billy freezes and warily asks who it is. Doyle sharply calls his name, he and Bodie whipping their guns out. Billy thinks fast, calls that he's getting dressed, and hotfoots it out of the window, leaving the music playing.

The Lads, meanwhile, have moved into position. Doyle nods that he's ready, and Bodie kicks the door in. They charge into the room, diving into position to cover all angles…but Billy isn't there. Not a word is spoken, as plan B instantly takes effect. Doyle charges back out into the corridor, while Bodie follows Billy out the window.

Action sequence! Doyle sprints back along the hallway. Bodie rushes along the scaffolding outside. Billy heads for the roof, with Bodie in hot pursuit. Doyle races downstairs. Bodie chases Billy across the roof. Billy finds a fire escape and descends at speed. Bodie follows. Billy rushes along a random balcony, past a window cleaner descending his ladder. Bodie shoves his way past said window cleaner rather ungracefully, sending his ladder flying. The window cleaner is not amused. Billy runs upstairs and downstairs, and all over the place. Bodie remains hard on his heels. Finally, down at ground level, Billy frantically tries to get back indoors, only to find the door locked. Bodie pounces, tosses him into a collection of nearby rubbish bins, and gets him into an impromptu headlock.

Doyle bursts out of another door nearby, gun at the ready…to find Bodie easily holding off the thrashing Billy. Little bit too late to be of any use! Bodie rolls his eyes.




Inside. Bodie unceremoniously flings Billy onto the bed. Sounds dirty, I know. He and Doyle proceed to menace the hapless Billy with intent. Doyle quietly locks the door, while Bodie oh-so mildly asks Billy if he always jumps out of windows when people come knocking. Billy defends that they didn't knock – they kicked the door in. Doyle quietly closes the window and Billy eyes him worriedly while Bodie digs that he shouldn't have picked such a nervous profession. "I didn't know who the hell you were!" Billy panics. "I still bloody don't."



I love how effectively the partners menace Billy in this scene, barely having to lift a finger or even raise their voices to convey their wrath. Never so much as looking sideways at Billy, Doyle starts rifling through drawers. Bodie disdainfully points out that Billy knows who Matheson and King are and shows his ID. Billy's relief is palpable, since he knows CI5 to be the good guys, and as an informant has always been treated well by them. He wonders why the hell they are treating him like this now.

Doyle finally spares him a glance. "You can't imagine?"



Billy can't.

"An hour ago," Bodie informs the informant, not making any attempt to hide the fact that his fury is just barely reined-in. "Working on information given them by their favourite snitch, Matheson and King went to an old disused house, thinking they were going to pick up something interesting."

"But we all know, don't we Billy?" Doyle picks up the tale, glancing at Billy in the mirror, now randomly messing about with Billy's collection of assorted beauty products, just for the sake of messing with them, sending Billy a clear message that he and his belongings mean nothing to this agent. Worthless scum. "That when they got there they found that the tip-off was about as straight as a two-pound note."

"However," Bodie continues through gritted teeth. "Having wasted several minutes of their valuable time walking about empty rooms, they went back to their car, where they found a little present waiting for them. A certain explosive device. That did its job most efficiently."

Doyle drops Billy's radio to the floor with a clatter at just the right moment to make the young man jump out of his skin, and then finds another set of drawers to rifle through. Billy absorbs what he is being told, and is appalled. Doyle scoffs that he isn't a very good actor and wouldn't get many Oscars for that performance. Bodie suggests thirty years would be more like it. Billy protests his ignorance and innocence. Bodie begs to differ, explaining that King took a little bit longer to die than Matheson, deferring to his partner to back him up on this point. Ah, and now we finally know which of those two doomed agents was which. Doyle agrees that it was very messy, sweeping the contents of Billy's bedside cabinet onto the floor so that he can sit on it, right alongside the scared little informant still cowering on the bed. Bodie finishes that King mentioned Billy before he died, and Doyle congratulates Billy on a job well done, asking how much he got.



Billy insists that he got nothing and did nothing. Bodie reminds him that he showed them to that house, and that's enough. Billy insists that he thought they were going to find something there. Bodie asks why he thought that. Billy says that he was told. Doyle asks who told him. Billy gets flustered. Bodie loudly and angrily repeats the question. Billy is stumped.

Doyle grabs Billy, hauls him off the bed, and flings him into an armchair, which promptly topples over backward. Bodie picks it back up again. Doyle leans in close to menace in his best ex-copper fashion that not remembering the man's name is a bit convenient. Billy confides that he sort of knows the man – he sees him around and they talk. This man claimed that some people were using the house, maybe for drugs or arms. Nothing specific, but this man made a point of telling him about the house. Using Billy to set the bait for his trap. Doyle asks where Billy sees this man. Nowhere specific. "It's like he searches me out," Billy explains.

Doyle reaches behind him, picks up Billy's cap and tosses it to Bodie, who puts it on Billy's head.

This is such a good scene: bad cop and bad cop. The partners work together so fluidly, the perfect partnership, knowing and trusting one another inside out, which allows them to work a situation like this to maximum effect.

Outside. "That was quick," Doyle approves, dumping Billy into the back of Susan's car. He instructs her to get a description off him, run it through the computer, and then let him go. Susan is shocked at the suggestion.

"Yeah, he's going to do some legwork for us, Susie," Bodie languidly explains. She doesn't protest the nickname. "We managed to convince him it's in his own interest."

Susan protests that she should at least stay with Billy, but Doyle immediately vetoes that idea, pointing out with no little concern that whoever this madman is, he knows faces. "Williams, Matheson, King – you're no different," he softly tells her. So she's to let Billy go and stay out of sight, he insists, and there's something intriguingly intimate about their exchange here. It could just be Doyle being macho and chauvinistic, wanting to keep a female out of harm's way, or it could be Doyle worrying about a close friend at a time when they are all in danger. Maybe a little of both. It is always fascinating to catch glimpses of his and Bodie's relationships with their fellow agents, we see so little of them.

"Okay. But I sincerely hope one of you is going to explain it to Cowley," Susan drawls. Hee.

"Oh yeah. One of us is," Bodie perks, clearly intending for Doyle to attend to that little chore. He heads back toward Doyle's car, while perfect gentleman Doyle holds the door for Susan to get back into her own car.

"Suppose we did the right thing not telling him about Chris," Doyle thoughtfully muses, watching Susan drive away.
"We want him to hit the streets, not head for the hills," Bodie points out.

Then they turn back to Doyle's Escort, and regard it with great suspicion. They have every reason to be twitchy, given how the day is going for CI5 in general.

"Oh god," Bodie groans. "We left the window open."
"What do you mean 'we'?" Doyle immediately counters, since it is Bodie's passenger window that has been left more than a little ajar.



HQ. Cowley is on the phone, grimly explaining that he has to recall his men from whatever operation the team in question is assigned to.

Street. Doyle crouches down and anxiously watches through the driver's window as Bodie gingerly reaches through his open passenger window to lift the lock. No explosion: so far so good.




Still cautiously, Bodie opens the door and scans the interior for any sign of disturbance, then slowly and carefully lowers himself into the seat. He picks up the radio, eyes it suspiciously for a moment, and then presses the button. Nothing.

Relieved, Bodie glances back up at Doyle, only to find that he has vanished. He leans across to find that Doyle is lying down on the pavement trying to get a good look for any bomb that might have been placed under the car.




HQ. Forensic man Phillips casually strolls into Cowley's office to report that the place is empty now, with the new location already set up. He's a very quirky character, this Phillips. Cowley nods his approval, and picks up the R/T to take Bodie's call.

Bodie reports that he and Doyle have found Billy. Frowning at the sight of Phillips picking up papers off his desk to read, Cowley asks how soon they can bring him in. Still scouting around the car for potential bombs, Bodie relays Billy's story about being set up to set up their men. Cowley disapprovingly takes the papers off Phillips and returns them to his desk as he asks how soon they can get Billy to HQ.



Bodie is distracted from his reply by Doyle miming a request to pop the bonnet, and complies, before explaining that Susan is using Billy to get a computer rundown on the other guy. And then she's going to…

Stuck with having to explain this, he coughs before hurriedly, nonchalantly, continuing that she is going to turn him loose so he can sniff around for them. "We figured that was the only way, position being what it is, sir. We reckon that, at the moment, the other guy's more important. That's what Doyle and I reckon, anyway." Bless, Bodie looks more afraid of Cowley's reaction than of the possibility of there being a bomb in the car. It's kind of an anti-climax when Cowley calmly agrees with this course of action.



Still silently removing from Phillips' hands everything the man keeps meddling with on his desk, Cowley instructs Bodie that he and Doyle are to keep working in conjunction with Susan, and to inform him at once of any leads they uncover, no matter how slight.

Doyle finishes examining the engine, casually slings himself into the driver's seat, and asks how Cowley took it. Heh. Bodie chirps that the old man isn't so bad after all and thought it was a good idea. "Glad I thought of it now." Hee.

Doyle fiddles with his car key and eyes it speculatively. "Well, you could always stand across the street," he suggests. "Not much point us both getting blown up, is there?"

Bodie rolls his eyes. "Stick it in." If they are going to go down – or off, or up, or whatever a potential bomb might do to them – they are going to go down together.



Doyle sticks the key in the ignition. The engine turns over, and no bombs explode. Bodie laughs that of course there was nothing to worry about. "Unless of course it's rigged to go off when you hit thirty," he teases. Doyle responds by accelerating. Hah.

HQ. Computer room. Susan is hard at work. Man, that computer is prehistoric. And big. Computing, 1979-style. We've come a long way in 30 years.

Okay. So Susan's search parameters involve an unknown male of approximately 30-35 years of age…and there are only 17 possibles coming up? Wow, that's…unlikely, to say the least. How small a sample is she searching among?

Car. "Hey, d'you phone Joanna?" Doyle asks. Bodie was meant to be phoning me? He feigns nonchalance, claiming it completely slipped his mind. Nice to know I'm so memorable.

This is exactly why neither of these men can ever make a relationship last: any girlfriend they have is always way down on their list of priorities.

It transpires from the conversation that the Lads had been planning some kind of double date, which must now be cancelled, what with the ongoing bombing campaign against CI5 and all. "They got into Cowley's office, didn't they?" Doyle points out. "I mean: Cowley doesn't even have a regular office. How much does he know?"

That's a good question.

"You know the first rule, don't you?" Doyle adds.
"Be purposely unpredictable," they both chorus.
"What a way to make a living," snorts Bodie. Heh.

Doyle pulls up outside Bodie's building, and waits in the car while his partner heads inside to phone me Joanna and cancel their date.

Take a good look around Bodie's flat: open and spacious, weird pictures on the wall, dartboard. Heh. He went to the fridge and found food before making his call – there's those priorities again – and uses Yellow Pages to find his date's phone number! Whatever happened to the little black book? It all adds up to further evidence of how casual this date is, and how transient he considers his girlfriends to be.

Bodie has a picture of Cowley stuck to his telephone. Enquiring minds boggle.

Bodie picks up the phone and starts to dial the first number…but then freezes. He's spotted a tiny clipping of wire in the rest for the handset, and that's all the evidence he needs to not dare release the dial. He puts the handset down, digs out his R/T, and calls for Doyle to get in there.

Doyle is instantly on high alert, whipping out his gun and sprinting into the building.

Upstairs, Bodie is quietly sitting with his finger in the dial when Doyle comes charging in, gun at the ready, and dashes about the place from point of cover to point of cover. Bodie rolls his eyes. Not finding any intruders in need of fending off, Doyle asks what's happening.




"The phone," Bodie explains. "It's got more plastic in it than it did this morning."

Doyle rolls his eyes in turn, and saunters over. "Is that all? How many numbers did you dial?"

"How many d'you think?" Bodie scoffs. "One."

Doyle eyes the phone and Bodie's strategically placed finger carefully, maintaining that studied air of nonchalance. "Oh well. D'you want me to do it?"

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," snorts Bodie. "Go to the pictures. Go on."

"No, no. I've seen everything that's on locally," Doyle lightly dismisses, pulling out a penknife.

Overtly acknowledging for the first time what is going on here, Bodie warns that there might be some kind of mechanism – a booby trap. "Oh yeah, you mean that thing I always used to get wrong at bomb disposal school," Doyle lightly remarks, starting to unscrew the telephone casing to get a look inside.




It's all very tense for a moment as Doyle removes the screws. Lots of pretty, pretty close-ups: all big eyes and worried expressions. Doyle's eyes are very green in this episode. Between them, the lads inform us that the tripper is probably on the bell or the body. Or, if they are really unlucky, the dial…

Doyle lifts the casing to find out, Bodie's finger still firmly in place. "It's on the dial." Of course! Of course it would be the worst possible scenario. "Don't mess about, do they?" Doyle observes. "There's about a pound of plastic explosive in here."

Way to make Bodie feel better about his finger being the only thing keeping them both from being blown sky high! He asks for a look, so Doyle carefully turns the phone just enough for him to see the device he came so close to triggering. Doyle continues to examine it, observing that it looks straightforward enough, with a miniature detonator.

"I feel like that kid with his finger in the dyke," Bodie mutters.
"That's just what you are, mate. You keep it stuck in there," Doyle fervently replies, intently focused on his bomb disposal work.




Doyle pulls the end of the wiring out of the plastic explosive, then picks up his penknife again, this time switching to the scissor attachment, and prepares to cut the wire. "Hold your breath, sunshine."

Doyle cuts the wires. Nothing happens. Bodie breaks out into a gleeful grin and releases the dial at last.

"You were very lucky, mate," Doyle informs him. "If you'd released that dial early it would have been the last cheap-rate call you ever made."




Computer room. Susan takes a phone call. It's Billy, reporting that he has found his informant. "He's called Parks. He's in an office across the street." Susan takes the address, and tells Billy not to go anywhere – she's coming right over.

The way Susan is presented to us in this episode is really rather fascinating. In her other episode, Dead Reckoning, we see her mostly as a chauffeuse, driving Cowley around. Here, though, she is being presented as a full agent in her own right, intelligent, competent and more than capable of holding her own in the male-dominated world of CI5.

Bodie's place. Cowley comes storming in to find Bodie serving tea to Doyle and Phillips, who tosses the plastic explosive to the Controller by way of hello. "Enough to blow these two idiots' heads off," is his professional assessment. He's a funny, quirky little chap, this Phillips – he'd have made a highly amusing recurring character to keep in the background of the show, wheeling him out from time to time if the plotline of a particular episode called for his kind of professional expertise. But alas, we never saw him again after this episode.

"Oh yeah, Brains. So what the hell were we supposed to do, then?" Bodie grumbles. Phillips snips that they could have called him on the R/T. Doyle defends that they didn't know how much time they had. "Anyway, my finger was getting bored," grunts Bodie.

Cowley interrupts the bickering to point out that there are more important implications here. He instructs Phillips to get his men to go over the home of every CI5 agent. "If they know this address, they know all of them." How, exactly, I wonder? We know that CI5 agents tend to move around a fair bit; the bomber knowing any of their current addresses suggests there's some kind of a leak in the organisation someplace. It's very up-to-the-minute information to have got hold of.

Phillips rather dumbly says that it will take some time. "Then it'll have to take some time!" Cowley rebuffs, exasperated, and Phillips mildly agrees. Cowley goes on to briskly observe that Bodie is going to be homeless for a while. Whoever planted the bomb knows where he lives, and there is nothing to stop them throwing something through the window. I'm going to guess that he'll be bunking on Doyle's sofa, in that case.

Cowley bustles the two agents out of the building, leaving Phillips to play with the disarmed bomb. The radio is buzzing as he gets to the car. Answering, he calls Doyle and Bodie back before they can disappear off in Doyle's Escort, although where they think they are going is anyone's guess. Susan is onto their man, he tells them, reeling off the address. The partners take off, quick smart, as Cowley frets to himself that Susan has gone after him alone.

Well, that tells us still more about Susan: that she's pro-active and feisty, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and unwilling to leave the hard stuff to the boys. She would need to be that ballsy and strong-willed for her career to truly flourish in a male-dominated organisation like CI5.

As Doyle spins the car around, the A-Z falls off the dashboard into Bodie's lap, and in what sounds to me suspiciously like improvisation, he chirps: "do you know where you're going?" Doyle admits that he doesn't, which is very unlike former copper Doyle, usually so familiar with the streets of London, so Bodie looks up the address.

Bagley Road. Billy is waiting outside an office block as Susan pulls up. He tells her where in the building to find the man, and saunters away. Susan grimly retorts that the man had better be in there, and heads inside.

Inside. Susan briskly approaches the office of Masson's Electronics and knocks. On being told to enter, she bursts through the door, gun at the ready and greets Mr Parks. Parks swiftly reaches for his own gun, in a handily open desk drawer.



Later. Doyle and Bodie arrive at Masson's Electronics to find quite a crowd has gathered. They push their way through the crowd and into the office, which looks like a bomb hit it. Only not quite as literally as Cowley's earlier. Posters ripped off the wall, filing cabinet tipped over, desk in disarray…and Susan casually lounging with her feet on the desk, a bedraggled and beaten Parks cowering on the floor beside her.



"You took your time getting here," Susan coolly observes. She has a split lip but otherwise seems entirely unruffled. The Lads wisely make no comment. "He doesn't give up easy, I'll give him that," she continues as Doyle hauls Parks to his feet and pulls out a pair of handcuffs. "Wish I'd had a pair of those on me," she ruefully adds.

"Souvenir from the old days," says Doyle, cuffing the prisoner. And what a useful souvenir they are, in all kinds of situations!

Susan hands Bodie the fake GPO badge that Parks had about his person, and he and Doyle banter around how handy it is to have a Class A clearance. Then Bodie gives Doyle a meaningful nod, and Doyle nods back, and Bodie hauls Parks toward the door, leaving Doyle to talk to Susan.

"Just, uh, leave him to us from now on. Okay?" Impressively, and again, Doyle manages to sound both sweetly concerned and annoyingly patronising at one and the same time. And, again, it is interesting to see Doyle's interaction with Susan in this episode. There's a spark there, something that suggests to the audience that they know one another well, that he cares about her as a friend – or maybe even more – as well as a colleague. It speaks of a background and history that we aren't privy to, and I like that – it is something this episode is good at, creating that sense of the breadth and depth of relationships that exist within the wider structure of CI5. We more often view the organisation through a much narrower scope, seeing only the dynamics between Bodie, Doyle and Cowley.




"Listen, don't push your luck," Susan snips. "I feel the same way, but come on. Wilson was a one off, but if you go into the contract business…"

Doyle's concern about Susan going into this alone came across as wholly genuine – but it was also intended very much for Parks to hear. Equally, Susan's reaction to this protective and semi-chauvinistic attitude feels entirely believable. But this is also a set-up for Parks, and she has taken her cue and run with it beautifully. Not that it makes a great deal of sense, but all we need to understand is that the agents are trying to frighten the man.

Car. Worried now, Parks anxiously asks who Wilson is. "The girl. She said something about Wilson and a contract." Got him sweating. Nice job.

Bodie vagues that Wilson was just a guy. A guy who fell out of a window. Parks blusters that they aren't going to get anything out of him. Doyle snaps back that they don't want anything out of him. Parks continues to protest that they are wasting their time, he won't tell them anything. Doyle repeats that they don't want him to talk. Parks is getting really nervous now, unable to believe that they wouldn't want him to talk.

"Nothing you can say will bring them back," Bodie points out, neither he nor Doyle sparing the man so much as a glance. "Williams. Matheson. King. They were good friends of ours."

Alarmed, Parks strains against the handcuffs and casts frantic eyes about the car in search of a way out.

Doyle's Escort pulls up in some random run down warehouse district – high on shabby, derelict buildings and low on passers by. No witnesses. Park is seriously freaking out by the time they get to the top of the fire escape on some abandoned factory and out onto the roof. Scared, he protests that they must be kidding, that they can't do this, that they are mad. "I had nothing to do with Matheson and King," he panics as the Lads level their guns at him. But that isn't true, since he was the one who gave Billy the information to set up Matheson and King. "I only did the first job! Cowley's office. I only supply the stuff. Wakeman set up your friends!"

So…Parks was just the sub-contractor, then? Okay.

HQ. "Wakeman?" Cowley is intrigued, and Doyle realises that his Controller recognises the name. Lounging with his feet on the computer table, Bodie wonders who he is. Except that it isn't a computer table, clearly, because this is the late 70s and there were no personal computer terminals. Must be some kind of typewriter or early word processor. Anyway. Cowley explains that Wakeman's group were active in the early days of CI5, before these two joined. He stops, eyes fixed on Bodie's feet. "Are you quite comfortable, Bodie?" he mildly yet pointedly asks. Hee. Bodie takes his feet down and straightens in his seat. Doyle is perched on the edge of Cowley's desk, but apparently this is acceptable.



Cowley continues that Wakeman himself managed to infiltrate CI5, and picked up a lot of information before he was discovered. Doyle remarks that it is all coming together now, but Cowley says no, not quite. There's just one problem: Wakeman is dead, killed by a grenade.

"Are you sure?" Bodie immediately asks.
"I pulled the pin myself," Cowley serenely confirms.

Cowley reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a slim file on Wakeman's group. Why would he keep that in there all this time? It sounded like he was just hearing Wakeman's name for the first time at the start of this scene, but maybe he was just being dramatic and the Lads called it in the moment they heard it, giving him time to locate the file. Anyway. He runs through the gang, and they are all accounted for, all dead but one, who is incarcerated in Florida. The group no longer exists.

Bodie wonders if the information died with them, and Cowley concedes that it may have been passed on. Well, but that still doesn't explain how whoever the information was passed to knows so much about CI5 as it is now, including current addresses of agents who weren't even with the organisation in Wakeman's time, and the location of Cowley's peripatetic office. That isn't old information, that is very up-to-the-minute, and how the bomber got hold of it is never addressed.




Cowley pulls another photograph out of the envelope, naming the man as a friend of Wakeman, Philip Catrall. He moved to the States shortly after Wakeman's death, but was seen back in the UK six months ago.

You know, it is really quite incredible to think how much information about so many different cases and possible cases Cowley has to process on a daily basis, and how little of it his agents ever see. He only ever tells them enough to work whichever case they are assigned to on a given day, and even then rarely opts for full disclosure. He hoards all that knowledge to himself. Man must have a brain like a computer!

Derelict warehouse complex. Doyle, Bodie and Phillips hide behind a stack of junk and keep watch on a caravan some distance away. They found that quick – Cowley must have been keeping Catrall under surveillance of some kind, monitoring his movements and location, to so instantly know where to find him. And yet he didn't know the man was planning an anti-CI5 operation until it happened, nor connect it with him until Wakeman's name came up. So the surveillance couldn't have been that close or they'd have picked up on what he was up to, surely.

Cowley arrives, and the trio surreptitiously move to join him. Meanwhile, on the roof of the factory, someone is watching the caravan through binoculars.

Phillips observes that Parks could have been lying. Doyle snorts that he wasn't in much of a condition to be making up stories. Bodie says that it makes sense, Wakeman's little hideout, all the way out here. Phillips questions his use of the name 'Wakeman'. "Are we talking about a ghost, or what?" Doyle shrugs that that's the name Parks used.

Cowley is on the R/T trying to raise another agent, Pennington – the man on the roof. Cowley asks if there has been any activity, and Pennington reports that he hasn't seen anyone yet. A light came on just before dawn and stayed on for about five minutes. So how much time has passed, and how long has this surveillance been in place? Is it the next day and the stakeout was hastily put together last night, with Catrall's movements not being followed at all previously, despite the fact that they clearly knew where to find him? Or has Cowley had a man watching Catrall all along, and they simply failed to adequately monitor his activities? Or did we miss the scene where they had to find out where he has been living since his return to the country? I'm still a little confused as to the details of this operation.

Phillips remarks that the caravan is just sitting there beckoning to them. Yeah, it's easy to say that when he isn't the one who is going to have to go in first to investigate. Rather tetchily, since he is one of the ones who will have to go in first to investigate, Doyle retorts that of course they want them to go over there.

"And that is exactly what we are going to do," Cowley briskly instructs, telling Phillips to get his equipment together.
"I like the way he says 'we'," Bodie asides to Doyle, another of the ones who is going to have to go in first to investigate. Hee.



Pennington continues to keep watch, monitoring the caravan, but also scanning the buildings all around for any sign of life.

While Cowley helps Doyle get kitted out with a metal detector, Phillips runs Bodie through the operation of some handheld device or other, explaining that when he gets inside there will be a lot of noises and he will have to interpret them. What Bodie will be looking for is nitrogen oxide, and Phillips just happens to have brought along a sample he prepared earlier, by way of example. The device shrieks. Bodie snorts his disdain for the demonstration, and throws the plastic explosive sample aside.

Cowley instructs his men to call him if it is clear. If it isn't, they are to back off. "I pay Phillips here for those kind of heroics, not you." Heh. There's another dig about Doyle's bomb-disarming exploits earlier.

Pennington is still keeping watch. Such a dull job that must be.

Doyle and Bodie set off toward the caravan, Doyle leading the way with his metal detector, ensuring that their route is clear. White trainers, tight black trousers, light brown leather jacket…and the headphones and frizzy hair to complete the ensemble. Bodie, wearing pale grey faux-leather jacket and tight grey trousers, follows close in his footsteps. Same outfits they've had on throughout the episode. If this is the next day, it seems no one has been home to get changed overnight.




There's a moment of concern as the metal detector wails over an object hidden beneath a damp scrap of cardboard…and the camera cuts away to reveal that someone else is watching the Lads closely. Someone who is watching through the scope of a sniper rifle. Doyle scuffs the cardboard aside to reveal a harmless scrap of metal waste beneath, kicks that aside also, and continues the slow walk to the caravan. There's some more arty camera work as the camera pans down low to watch the Lads pass by from beneath.

Finally the Lads reach the caravan and start checking it out. Rifle-eye vision shows us that their friendly neighbourhood sniper has Bodie's head squarely in his sights. He doesn't shoot, though.



A light coming on inside the caravan gives Bodie a bad moment, as he ducks away from the window in alarm, but there is no further sign of life, and no one to be seen inside. The light goes off again, and both Lads are perplexed.

Bodie puts his gun away and employs his scanning device to check out the window, while Doyle rounds the caravan to metal detect around the other side. This brings him into the sniper's sights once more, and the scope follows him along.

Having determined that there is no plastic explosive anywhere around the frame, Bodie picks up a hefty stone and throws it through the window. This makes the sniper just about jump out of his skin, but he swiftly brings his scope to bear on Doyle once more as he diligently metal detects his way past a large FOR SALE sign on the side of the caravan. There is a dot in the middle of the O. This is significant, and yet wholly unremarkable. As Doyle passes, the scope of the rifle no longer follows, instead remaining trained on the O and that dot.




Bodie climbs in through the broken window and quickly scans the door. Outside, Doyle pulls his headphones off, rubs his ear, and announces that it is all clear. Bodie opens the door for him. "Care for a cup of tea," he minces. Hee.

Doyle notes the timer on the lights. Bodie remarks that it keeps burglars out. My parents always use that trick when they are away, and they've never been burgled, so maybe it works. Bodie continues to scan the interior of the caravan, noting the presence of phosphorus around the stove, indicating that someone has been cooking recently.

"Inside the spider's web, and no spider," Doyle remarks, and asks if the bench is safe to sit on. Having already checked, Bodie gives it the all clear, and Doyle sits.

"It's going to take ages, this," Bodie laments. "Any bright ideas?"
"Yeah. You check everything, mate," Doyle fervently tells him, not fancying the idea of being blown sky-high.

Bodie promptly turns around and sticks his explosive-detector in Doyle's rampant mop. Hee. Doyle rolls his eyes. "You know, I wonder about you sometimes." Oh, don't we all!




Doyle pulls out his R/T to report to Cowley that it is all clear on the outside, and no explosives found inside so far. Then, moving closer to the large tape recorder on the table, he calls Bodie to give it the once over before he touches, since he is understandably a bit paranoid about machines just at the moment. Bodie gives it a quick scan, which reveals it to be safe.




Outside, the sniper's scope homes in on Cowley, now venturing toward the caravan himself.

Inside, Doyle fiddles with the recording device until he gets it playing back. "And somewhere along the way, there'll be you," the voice of Cowley's telephone message from earlier lugubriously declares. "You won't know when, you won't know where, but it's coming, Cowley. You can count on it."

Outside, we finally get to see the man behind the sniper scope, Philip Catrall, still keeping his sights trained on Cowley as he approaches the caravan.



Inside the caravan, Doyle wonders why anyone would record their warning and then feed it over the phone. To get it sounding just right, without any fear of interruption or of forgetting their lines or stammering, or of, say, sneezing at the wrong moment, I'd imagine. "If you're going to be there to play the tape, you might just as well speak in person," he puzzles, ignoring my logic. "It's a bit abstract, innit?"

Up in the rooftops, the watching Pennington finally earns his keep as he notices the light flashing off Catrall's rifle scope.

In the caravan, Bodie puts his explosive-detector down on a surface directly above the For Sale sign tacked to the van. The detector immediately starts to scream. Why did Bodie not check that spot already? He should have covered every single surface of the van before giving up and putting the detector down. Hearing the scream, Bodie dashes to look out of the window and sees the spot in the O, just as Pennington radios over that they are being watched. Cowley enters the caravan, and Bodie instantly bellows at him to get out, diving toward the door himself.




Catrall pulls the trigger, twice. His first shot hits the sign but misses the target, but the second hits the right spot dead on. The caravan explodes. It is all very tense and dramatic, what with the flames and the huge bloom of smoke and all.



Job done, Catrall climbs down from his rooftop perch.

Street. An ambulance charges along, siren blaring, with a police escort clearing the way. Inside, Phillips makes himself useful holding a drip attached to the unconscious Cowley. First time viewers fear for the lives of their favourite agents.

St Patrick's Hospital. A doctor exposits to a junior that there has been an explosion: two fatalities and one with severe burns, instructing her to get the oxygen tent set up. It doesn't sound good for our Lads! Cowley is rushed into A&E, jerky handheld camera conveying the Controller's perspective as a swarm of medical professionals descend upon him and race his trolley along the corridor, Phillips still at his side holding the drip bag. He doesn't look at all burned, though, despite what the doctor just said. As Cowley is taken into the treatment room and the door closes behind him, we catch a glimpse of another agent, a beefy blond. It isn't Pennington, who we met earlier. We didn't really get a good look at him up on the roof, but this doesn't look like him, and we aren't given this agent's name.

A red car pulls up outside the hospital, and Catrall climbs out of the passenger door. That's important. He isn't alone – someone else drove him here, and we see this person's gloved hands on the wheel.

Exiting Cowley's room, Phillips mutters: "you know what to do" to Beefy Blond as he passes. He wanders up to another door, glances surreptitiously about, and then sidles through it.

Carrying a holdall, Catrall speaks to the nurse on reception, asking for directions.

Phillips enters another room, raises his fists teasingly, and says "How are you feeling?" The camera pans around to…Doyle and Bodie, each holding a cop of tea, without so much as a scratch or smudge of ash on either one of them despite what must have been extreme proximity to the blast given how little time they had to evacuate. Bodie is pinching the bridge of his nose to indicate that he has a headache, though, while Doyle is pressing at his ringing ears. It was a little too close for comfort.



"There's a little bloke inside my head whistling a tune," Bodie wearily drones. "And I think he's forgotten it." Oh, I know the feeling. Not that I've ever been blown up, of course.

"Personally speaking, I'm wondering how being officially listed as dead is going to cock up my next pay line," Doyle loudly remarks. Hee. Talk about a one-track mind. Growing alarmed, he even more loudly hopes they don't cancel his pension, loud because of the ringing ears from the explosion.

Bodie grumbles that he doesn't know how Doyle can think of money at a time like this. Doyle asks what he's thinking about, then, but more quietly, and Bodie can't hear. Doyle repeats the words 'thinking about' more loudly, and Bodie's like, 'thinking, what's that?' so Doyle says it again, louder still. Bodie admits that he is thinking about me Joanna and how he won't be able to see her again tonight. Again. Both partners look frustrated and a little disgusted at the whole situation, and them Bodie turns to Phillips to grumpily and deafly ask what he's thinking about, then. Doyle turns to him. "Pardon?" Heh.

CI5 Computer Room. Susan is still beavering away at the computer, researching Wakeman's background. Although the information on screen is perfectly legible, she reads all the salient details out loud just in case any of us are unable to read. Wakeman's parents are both dead, but there is a sister, one Lisa Wakeman. Spider senses on full alert, Susan instantly gets on the R/T and instructs whoever is on the other end to locate Alpha One. Then she looks up Lisa Wakeman, and immediately learns that, although out of the country at the time of her brother's death, she has been suspected of involvement with arson and is suspected to be an associate of Philip Catrall. Susan is alarmed.

If this sister is such a shady character, or even suspected to be, why wasn't she as much of an automatic assumption for the person Wakeman shared his information with as Catrall? Especially since Parks even named the person who hired him as Wakeman. Her details might not have been on Wakeman's file, but Susan learned of her existence easily enough. Cowley has a brain like a computer; if the Wakeman group were such a big deal, he should have known all about the sister and kept her under observation. Or is she supposed to have been that good at keeping a low profile up till now?

Hospital. Catrall has found himself a nice white lab coat in which to wander around the hospital looking like he belongs there. You have to admire the man's nerve, as he walks right up to Beefy Blond and asks if he's seen anything suspicious yet. Responding automatically to the note of authority, rather than questioning it, Beefy Blond obediently reports that no, he hasn't, sir. But then…Phillips' remark earlier about him knowing what to do implied that there was a plan afoot, we remember…

Catrall snarks at Beefy Blond to keep his 'cannon' covered up, picking at the man's lapel to further throw him off his guard, and then walks right into Cowley's room, unchallenged. Cowley lies in an oxygen tent, seemingly comatose. Catrall walks up to the bed, and unzips the oxygen tent, takes Cowley's arm, pushes up the sleeve, and pulls a loaded needle out of his pocket.

Cowley's fingers flex and his eyes open, and he grabs hold of Catrall, who yells and falls back in surprise. Doyle, Bodie and Phillips all come charging into the room at the sound – where did Beefy Blond go, I wonder?

Cowley sits up, looking triumphant and thoroughly exhilarated. That is such a consistent characteristic of Cowley, that thrill he gets from out-foxing an opponent. "I don't care much for your treatment. Doctor," he smirks at Catrall. "I had no idea you were so devoted to Wakeman. He would have been proud of you, Catrall."



A short time later, Beefy Blond has reappeared and escorts a sullen, handcuffed Catrall toward the exit, with Bodie and Doyle following close behind, snarking among themselves about Catrall's morose silence and usual fondness for the sound of his own voice.

A blonde woman passes them in the corridor, and the partners automatically turn to check her out before continuing. After they've passed through a couple more doors, Doyle takes a call from Susan on the R/T. She waited until she was in the car and on the road before sending up the bat signal? Why not give the warning the moment she suspected Lisa Wakeman was involved? She hurriedly tells Doyle that she found a piece of information on Wakeman that wasn't in the files, and Catrall freezes. It's a nice touch, though, that his back is to all three agents so they are unable to see his reaction as Susan explains that Wakeman had a sister who appears to be following in big brother's footsteps. "Distinct possibility she was knocking around with Catrall while he was in New York."

Our Lads' eyes go wide at the realisation that Wakeman is a woman, and they charge back off the way they just came, yelling at Pennington to look after Catrall.



The blonde woman the Lads were just ogling a moment ago continues her journey through the corridor. She pauses, ponders a couple of different possible directions, and then selects a corner to lurk around.

Bodie and Doyle continue to belt their way through the hospital.

Still lurking at her corner, Lisa Wakeman pulls a gun out of her handbag.

Cowley and Phillips walk together along a random corridor, puzzling over the loose ends of the case. There's something left unanswered, they agree. More than one thing, if you ask me, which they don't.

Up ahead, Lisa Wakeman steps out from around the corner, calls Cowley's name, and shoots. Phillips demonstrates his lightning reactions by shoving the Controller out of the way and taking the bullet himself. That's rather heroic for a behind-the-scenes forensics chap. Even the techs at CI5 are made of stern stuff!



Bodie and Doyle continue to race along, guns at the ready. But Lisa Wakeman is a speedy creature and has already found her way to an exit and is rushing back to her car. But she's wearing high heels! And yet can still outrun any pursuit! And she didn't even have that much of a head start on them – Susan called with the warning just moments after they saw her. Maybe they zigged where she zagged and are now in completely the wrong section of the hospital.

Luckily, Susan reaches the hospital just in time to cut Wakeman off as she attempts to drive away from the scene of the crime. And now, finally, Doyle and Bodie manage to catch up, a police car right behind them, siren blaring. Lisa Wakeman is apprehended at last.

Back in the hospital, with a concerned Cowley at his side, Phillips' shoulder wound is being tended to. "Least I'm in the right place to get shot," he remarks, pained but stoic enough.

Bodie and Doyle arrive to report that Wakeman has been arrested, and to ask how they are. "Great," Cowley grumbles. "After all I've been through, I end up getting a sprained wrist from one of my own men!" Mwah.

He wanders off, leaving his agents to mutter about gratitude behind his back. Roll credits!



Overall, this episode is tremendous fun and wonderful entertainment. Riddled with plot holes, of course, but who really cares about that when the banter between the partners and the people around them is zinging along so beautifully? Definitely one to savour.

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