Sickness and Health

Sickness and Health has two stories about people hiding the truth for what they think are good reasons. In the first, the owners of a nursing home hire Ken to look into a series of petty thefts from patients. Ken is too busy and hands the case to Harry, who goes into the home posing as a businessman suffering from stress and nervous collapse. Laura plays his gushing, spoilt daughter.

Harry clears the cleaner and the gardener and begins to suspect Mary Fraser, an eccentric elderly woman who is a long-term resident. He marks a wad of five-pound notes and leaves them in his bedside drawer. They disappear, and he finds them in Mary's handbag. He reports to the Matron that he has found the thief, and is startled to hear her confess.

The Matron has been taking the money to give to Mary. Mary believes her son in New Zealand sends her little birthday treats, but he died two years ago, and the Matron cannot bring herself to tell her. Harry agrees not to expose her as long as the thefts stop, and offers to pay for Mary's treats himself.

The second story is harder. Helen's friend Chris, a social worker, asks her to shelter Judy Shelley and her two lively sons, who need to hide until Judy can get an injunction against her husband, Peter, a doctor. Judy says he beats her. Rocky is left to mind the boys and ends up stranded on the roof after one of them pretends to be stuck. From there he sees a man watching Woodcote Park through binoculars.

The man is working for Peter. Ken finds him, now checked in as a guest, and Peter gives his own version: that Judy is mentally ill.

But he and his associate are planning to take the boys, and they bundle them into Peter's car. Ken and Rocky chase them, Helen blocks the gate with her own car, and Judy and Peter are forced to face each other. When Peter repeats his story, Judy lifts her blouse to show bruises and four broken ribs. Peter turns violent and has to be held. He drives off in a rage, knocking Harry over as he returns from the nursing home, and Harry's injured leg lands him in a hospital bed.

Jane Hollowood wrote the episode and Brian Lighthill directs. Fabia Drake plays Mary, Judy Cornwell is the Matron, and Susan Jameson plays Judy Shelley.

The nursing-home plot is gentle and well turned, since the thief is a benefactor and the detective agrees to let her carry on. The domestic violence plot is the more serious, and it is told straight: the husband's calm story is set against the visible injuries, and the episode lets the injuries decide. The change of tone between the halves is sharp, but the two stories share one theme, that people lie to protect someone, and that the lie is not always kind.