The One Who Got Away

The crime squad goes undercover against a gang of international counterfeiters, and for Inspector Jean Darblay that means watching her own patch from behind a borrowed identity. The episode takes the show out of its usual territory, swapping the familiar streets of Hartley for the anxious business of pretending to be somebody else in front of people who would kill you for the truth.

The operation pulls in officers from every level. Superintendent Lake oversees from a safe distance, Detective Inspector Harry Connor runs the detail, and Detective Sergeant Annie Aspen does the close work that gets an undercover officer noticed by the wrong people. Around them move the figures of the counterfeit world: Mavis Newby, who answers to Colette, the mysterious Trunky Porter, and a murderer whose presence reminds everyone what the stakes are. Even Tom Darblay and Sergeant Joseph Beck are drawn into the edges of the operation, because in a town this size everybody knows somebody.

Kenneth Clark wrote it, Carol Wilks directed. Stephanie Turner is Jean Darblay, with David Hargreaves as Tom, David Ellison as Beck, John Ringham as Superintendent Lake and Mark Drewry as PC Bentley. Stephanie Fayerman plays Detective Sergeant Annie Aspen, Walter McMonagle is Detective Inspector Harry Connor, Shirley Stelfox is Mavis Newby, and Andy de la Tour plays the Murderer. Geoffrey Hutchings does double duty as Trunky Porter and Commander Nigel Scott, which raises the question of who exactly is watching whom.

The show does not usually do this kind of glamour, and the change of pace suits it. There is real tension in watching honest people try to be dishonest convincingly, and the episode keeps the danger close without letting the operation become a spy thriller. It stays a police story, just one played away from home.

The title promises somebody slips the net. The pleasure is in watching the net get mended in time.