Season 07 Episode 05

Will is popular among the residents of a local nursing home and less so with its matron, who takes a poor view of him. The residents include Ida Merryman, who enjoys herself, and Clem Preston, a mischievous storyteller. Clem locks the matron out of her office and plays a rock and roll record over the intercom, and when Will tells the matron she is being too harsh on him she says the residents are fortunate to be there and should show her respect.

The next morning she is found dead in Clem's room and Clem and Ida are missing. Both are obvious suspects, and the death could equally be an accident, since there is blood on the sink where she seems to have struck her head. Everyone in the home was accounted for at 8pm, the matron was not found until 8am when the staff returned, and a loud bang was heard at about 9pm. Pat Wyndham, the handyman, says everyone there was like family despite the strict rules and cannot think who would have wanted to hurt her.

Some glasses of moonshine in Clem's room, together with paperwork Miss Scott finds that signs Clem's guardianship over to the matron on the grounds of mental incapacity, push the case towards violence, and there are applications of the same kind for other residents. Clem's estranged daughter Clara is the obvious beneficiary of any inheritance and did not know he was in the home. She had cut him off after a lifetime of stories and schemes, and she has an alibi, having been at a restaurant the previous night. Geordie and Will trace the moonshine to a bottle marked as turpentine and then to Pat Wyndham, who has a still in a locked closet in his shed. Pat says only Clem knew about it, that he had a drink with Clem at about eight, and that at nine he was watching television with the residents, who confirm the programme.

Clem and Ida are then reported for robbery, having taken a man's car and his cash at gunpoint. Clem had always told Clara he would take her to the Ritz for tea in a flashy car if one of his schemes came off, and Geordie and Will search the hotels nearby and find the pair dining happily. Clem admits the gun was a bluff and submits to arrest, announcing that he has slayed the dragon, and at the station he says he was only entertaining the guests. Ida confesses to killing the matron and describes it differently from the physical evidence, saying the matron hit her head on the pipes rather than the sink, and Geordie concludes Ida does not know how the woman died and is lying to protect someone.

The death is resolved by the television schedule. Geordie works out that Pat Wyndham lied about watching television, and Pat admits he loved Clem and his stories. When Clem confronted the matron over the forged guardianship papers, Pat tried to calm things and then pushed her when she turned on him, and he did not mean to kill her. Clem and Ida fled and took the blame to protect him. Geordie tells Clara that both Pat and Ida risked everything for her father and that there might be something in him worth having. Clara bails the pair out and embraces her father.

Geordie is called away to a disturbance at Swinnertons department store, where Cathy has chained herself to the door with handcuffs supplied by Miss Scott. She is leading a strike by the women clerks, who are paid less than the men. Geordie takes her and the others to the station, tells her he understands the grievance, and says Miss Scott is better at the job than Larry and paid less than him. They talk about the marriage and Cathy tells him he has to stop living in the past, and he admits he holds on to her and to the life they had as an anchor, and that without it he does not know who he is. She suggests they imagine they are meeting for the first time and write a new story, they kiss, and Geordie sleeps at home for the first time in months. He tells Mrs Chapman, when he hugs her and moves his things out of the vicarage, that he would do anything for more time with his family.

Will's private life closes the episode. Maya returns to the vicarage, having left Elliot Wallace, and wants him to travel through Europe with her. He had told Geordie he was swearing off women, and Geordie accused him of running away when things become real. He calls Maya and agrees, and they spend the night together. Bonnie arrives early next morning to tell him she has strong feelings for him and wants more than friendship, sees Maya, calls Will an entitled arse and leaves, and Maya, who heard all of it, agrees with her and tells him she has been kidding herself about the kind of man he is, and so has he. Mrs Chapman's illness runs through the episode: Will takes over her work so she can rest, and she tells Jack she is frightened of the treatment. He tells her the decision is hers and that he will take whatever time with her he has, and she decides to forgo the radiation. When she tells Will, he says not to give up, and she tells him he is just a boy telling adults what to do, and walks away.

The episode is built as a comedy that turns on an old man's escapade and ends with the two people who love him each ready to go to prison for him, which is the most generous piece of plotting the series attempts. The television alibi decides it, and it is decided by a schedule rather than an observation, so the answer is a printed page and a lie about what was on. Clem's line about slaying the dragon is the only flourish the episode allows itself.