Rough Trip

A young schoolboy, Simon Maxstead, is snatched by a terrorist group, and the ransom is not money. The boy's father has access to top secret government information, and the boy is the bargaining chip. A missing schoolboy is the kind of case that keeps detectives awake at night, and the unit treats it that way. Nigel calls it top priority, which in this unit means everyone drops everything.

The local threat turns out to be a front. Maggie, Tessa and Fred follow the case back to an international terrorist ring from Bangladesh, operating in plain sight behind an innocent-looking grocery shop. It is the kind of reveal the show does well: the most ordinary shopfront on the street, and behind the counter an organisation holding a child.

Gerry O'Hara wrote it and William Brayne directed. Daniel Meader's Simon is the boy at the centre, with Frank Olegario as Gopal, Josephine Welcome as Mrs Gopal, Sneh Gupta as Shafi Aziz, Peter Brace as the Chauffeur and John Bardon as the Police Inspector, while Jill Gascoine's Maggie, Leslie Ash's Fred, Tracy-Louise Ward's Tessa and Don Warrington's Nigel run the case. It went out in May 1986, with the second series in full stride. John Bardon, who plays the Police Inspector, would become a household face as Jim Branning in EastEnders, and he gives the brief role the right weight.

Kidnap plots only work if the threat feels real, and this one does because the terrorists are not cartoonish. They are patient people running a shop, and that patience is the scary part. But the grocery shop detail is the best thing in it; it is the sort of hiding place that only works because nobody looks twice at a corner shop. The episode gets the balance right: a child in danger, adults behaving like adults, and a resolution that doesn't cheat. The ending is earned, no sudden cavalry, just patient work and a shopfront that finally gives up its secrets.