Wheelman

Makepeace poses as reporter Debby Smith to get close to the hoodlum known as Marocco Jack, and ends up saving his life from a rival gang. Dempsey, meanwhile, joins Marocco's crew posing as an American driver called Andy Sallapuccio, the wheelman they need for two simultaneous jewel heists. And somewhere above all this, Spikings is fielding complaints from upstairs that could see SI10 shut down. The name Marocco Jack alone tells you the show is having a good time.

Murray Smith wrote it, Tony Wharmby directed, and the hour juggles three balls without dropping any of them. Tom Georgeson's Jack Cade and George Irving's Mickey the Shiv give the gang its menace, Terence Budd's Jim Presley and Peter Hutchins's Evil Bill Dundas add the colour, and Niall Toibin's Assist. Com. Webb is the face of the trouble brewing for Spikings. Tony Osoba's Chas Jarvis and Tom Kelly's Tom Clyde hold the office end down, and Lois Baxter, Valentino Musetti and Gareth Milne round out the guest list.

The double act undercover is the fun of it: two people pretending to be other people while trying to keep an eye on each other, both convinced they are the one in charge. The heists are the excuse, the disguises the point. And the threat to SI10 gives the whole thing a deadline the gang never knows about. The episode went out on 7 September 1985, a week after Silver Dollar reopened the series. There is a quiet joke in the casting: Dempsey's cover is an American driver called Andy Sallapuccio, and for a New York cop that is barely a disguise at all, while Makepeace's reporter Debby Smith is the one doing the real acting. The show never draws attention to it, and the episode is the better for the restraint.

It is a busy, confident episode, and the name Evil Bill Dundas tells you exactly what sort of company Dempsey has signed up with.