No Way to Treat a Daley

Aerial advertising seems like a clean business for Arthur Daley, which should have been the first warning. He buys a hot air balloon, launches Daley Inflatables, and for a while the sky over London does what Arthur usually has to do on the ground: sell space. The launch seems set up for success, which in this world is the surest sign that it will end in abduction. But the balloon floats over the wrong man's ambitions. Tony Pike, a rival with a reputation for being a little unhinged, takes offence, and his version of a business meeting is to invite Arthur out for a drink and then have him bundled into a car with his henchman Warren.

They end up at a disused power station, the sort of place where the only entertainment is a lecture about market share, delivered unpleasantly. Ray, who has been chasing the trail from a distance, finally locates the site. By the time he arrives, Arthur is gone. He has simply talked his way out, a skill no amount of muscle can match, and Ray is left standing in an empty building with nothing to rescue.

Tim Firth and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Lawrence Gordon Clark directed. George Cole is Arthur, Gary Webster is Ray and Glynn Edwards is Dave, with Philip Martin Brown as Pike, Richard Ridings as Warren, Emma Cunningham as Gloria, Desmond McNamara as Les, James Berwick as Joey, Suzy Cooper as Desiree and Hugh Sachs as Kenny.

The episode runs on the old truth that Arthur's real business has never been whatever he happens to be selling. It is people. Pike mistakes him for stock to be intimidated, and the show's quiet pleasure is watching that assumption get talked to death. Nobody ever learns, least of all the next rival who tries it.