Carrier Pigeon

Fred Smith takes a few days off in Amsterdam, which for this show means a holiday that is about to stop being one. She recognises an old school friend working on a film crew making a commercial, and later, in a Dutch disco, she meets Sara Fields, and the two of them remember the old days. It is all very warm, and the warmth is the trap.

On the flight home Sara is caught smuggling drugs through customs and arrested. But Fred is convinced her friend is innocent, and she puts her own life on the line to prove it. The old friends' reunion is the engine of the episode, and the show trusts it: no car chases, just a debt between two women who knew each other as girls. The episode lets the doubt sit, and Fred carries it: loyalty this fierce usually has a price, and the ending leaves the question hanging, whether it was worth paying.

Paul Wheeler wrote it and J.B. Wood directed. Leslie Ash's Fred is the whole story, with Claire Toeman as Sara, Jeffrey Chiswick as Jeff, Shaun Scott as Colin, Richard Walker and David Barrass as the customs officials, Earl Tobias as a Transvestite and Dave Lynn as a Drag Act, while Jill Gascoine's Maggie and Don Warrington's Nigel hover on the edges.

The Amsterdam setting gives the show a holiday sheen, canals and neon, and the customs arrest brings it crashing down. The drag acts and transvestites of the Dutch night scene give the show a splash of colour it rarely allows itself. It is a small, personal story, the kind the show did better than its reputation suggests, and it leaves you with the question the title never quite answers. Some friendships cost more than they are worth, and Fred pays up anyway.