The Belles of St. Godwalds

The Belles of St. Godwalds is a kidnap story in which the victim is helping. Justina Bradleigh is a beautiful, spoilt eighteen-year-old at a girls' public school, and she is secretly seeing Perry, a confident young man who is building the school's new swimming pool. She is rude to Deborah, her father's new girlfriend.

Ken and Harry are hired to guard a fashion show and charity gala at the school. A bomb threat arrives, and the headmistress, Hester McCullock, says it is the latest in a long line of pranks that are starting to affect the school's reputation. She asks Ken to investigate before parents begin to take their daughters away.

Harry has his own concerns. He wants to join the local Conservative branch, whose chairman, Simon Bradleigh, Justina's father, has told him that the party takes a dim view of confirmed bachelors. Simon recommends an introduction agency run by Davina Barclay, and asks Harry to keep an eye on Deborah, to make sure she is respectable.

Harry hands that job to Rocky. At the agency Harry is given a date, Kate Fowler, and falls for her, not realising she is Deborah, who works for Davina as a temporary escort. Harry agrees not to tell Simon if she gives up the work and gets his money back from Davina.

Then Justina disappears. Hester receives a long plait of her hair through the post, with a ransom demand for a valuable map owned by the school. She agrees not to call the police, for the sake of Justina, Simon and the school. Ken questions Justina's room-mate, Monica, who suspects Justina is part of it and suggests finding the hairdresser who cut the plait.

Justina is staying at Perry's flat, planning to run away with him, until she finds there is just one plane ticket. Rocky tracks down the hairdresser, who identifies the pair. Ken and Monica convince Justina that Perry is a con man who has no intention of taking her with him.

At the gala, Perry collects the map, wrapped round a French stick, and runs when Ken challenges him. He weaves through the crowd and the models on the catwalk, and tries to escape in a CBS van. Inside, an Alsatian guard dog keeps him busy until the police arrive.

Veronica Henry wrote the script and Christopher Baker directs. David McCallum plays Simon, with Shelagh McLeod as the headmistress, and Marie Helvin appears as herself.

The best touch is the fake kidnap, since the girl who has been taken is the person who most wants to leave. The weakness is the Conservative subplot, which is largely there for jokes about bachelors, though Harry's response to Deborah's secret does show him to be kinder than he sounds.