Trouble in the Fields

Trouble in the Fields begins Boon's fifth series with a bank manager's refusal. Harry, who has done well enough since selling Woodcote Park to drive a Jaguar, wants to start a security business from offices at a canal basin by the Trent. His bank manager, Mr Statter, will not lend him the money. Ken, Rocky and Laura, meanwhile, are working out of a tacky caravan.

Ken's first case takes him into the country on horseback. He is investigating dead fish and suspected dumping at a quarry near Dornford Hall for two clients, a patronising Dr Sinclair Lewis and an ecology campaigner, Simon, who suspect that ceramic solvents are being tipped there. An air-rifle pellet hits his horse and throws him off. He is helped by Irena Tadeusz, a Polish woman who lives at the Hall and who tells him about a friend, Brigadier Charles, beaten up in a robbery.

The news reports a run of burglaries of antiques from country houses, and then that the Brigadier has died. Ken offers Irena a free alarm survey, which gives him a reason to look round the Hall. She gives him a present, a tin with a cake in it, and much later he finds photographs at the bottom of the tin showing the stolen antiques, including the Brigadier's.

Ken searches the quarry and finds an underground smelting works, with shelves of stolen antiques and ordinary-looking ceramic pots full of silver ingots. Irena's boyfriend, Andrew, attacks him and the police arrive in time. Irena had photographed the houses for Andrew, but she was now trying to stop him, because he had started to hurt people and to enjoy it.

Laura has a story of her own. She sings with a band at the Drum, and its manager, Angus, wants her to join full-time. She thinks of leaving Ken for London, takes part in a talent contest, and learns that the talent scout wants the band but not her.

In the end, Mr Statter changes his mind. Harry and Ken go into partnership as Crawford Boon Security, with Ken running the investigations and Harry the security side, and Ken plans to live on a yacht by the CBS office.

Pete Barwood wrote the episode and Anthony Garner directs. Valentina Yakunina plays Irena and Trevor Peacock is Dr Lewis. The title sequence for the series has Ken leaving his home beside the CBS offices and imagining White Lightning racing through a warehouse.

The best moment is the cake tin. Irena's present, a small kindness, is also a confession, and Ken only understands it when he finds the photographs. It also explains her: she gave him the evidence herself, in a form he could not read at the time.

The pollution story that opens the episode is dropped once the antiques appear, which is a weakness, but the transition is smooth. IMDb users rate this one of the best of the fifth series, and as a launch for the new business it is a confident piece of work.