Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk starts as a protection job and turns into a story about who is hunting whom. A lawyer, Caroline Mortlake, hires Harry to protect her and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Emma, from a man in a raincoat who keeps pestering them. He is Bill Webster, a reporter on the local newspaper, and his editor, Eddie Morgan, is determined to get Caroline.

Harry has Rocky look after Emma, taking her around on his motorbike. She takes an instant fancy to him and tries every trick to get him into compromising situations, which embarrasses Rocky so badly that he asks Laura to pretend to be his girlfriend. Laura has a quiet word with Emma, who leaves him alone. The real reason emerges much later.

Bill, meanwhile, watches Caroline's office. His car has its brake pipes cut, and he storms into CBS accusing Ken. Ken and Harry ask Caroline why she is being followed, and she explains. She recently won a libel action against Morgan and his paper for a client, Steve Reeves, a local entrepreneur and radio DJ, who was awarded £40,000. The paper had alleged that Reeves was sleeping with under-age fans, and he had sued for the publicity.

Ken sees Morgan having lunch with Caroline. Morgan had hired her after being impressed by her performance in court, and now he has been outbid by Reeves in a business deal she was handling for him. He suspects her of tipping Reeves off and wants her struck off. Bill follows her to a housing estate, where she watches the house Reeves shares with his secretary, Penny. Caroline and Reeves had been lovers, and Morgan wants evidence that it continues.

Bill is then beaten up, and Reeves visits Caroline and beats her too. Tearfully she tells Ken the full story: after the libel case Reeves began sleeping with her for one reason, to see Morgan's file, learn what price he was offering and better it.

Caroline shows Penny her bruises, and Penny agrees to help put Reeves in prison. Ken and Harry visit the studio posing as journalists and appear to confront Penny while Reeves listens on the studio intercom. When he thinks they have left, he threatens Penny and confesses to beating up Bill to stop the story that would ruin his business. Ken and Harry are in the other studio, recording every word. Bill gets his story.

Susan Wilkins wrote the episode and Anthony Garner directs. Timothy Spall plays Bill, Isla Blair plays Caroline, and Bill Nighy plays Reeves.

The strength is the recording. The villain confesses to people he thinks are gone, in a studio built for broadcasting, and the trap is neatly set up in a few lines. The weakness is the opening: Harry is hired against a stalker who turns out to be a reporter with an editor behind him. Rocky's punchline, learning that Laura told Emma he was gay, is the episode's last joke.