Baked Beans

Watt is in a bar, and Frank Chandler is in a bar, which is how these evenings tend to start. Chandler is a fence, and he has his secretary with him, a woman called Doris who wastes no time. She makes contact with Watt and offers him the thing every detective wants: a fence caught in the act. Chandler has agreed to buy a batch of stolen lawnmowers from two villains who are new to the game, and Doris is willing to supply the time and the date. Lawnmowers. The whole operation, whatever else it is, is going to hinge on a load of stolen lawnmowers. It is not a glamorous crime, and that is probably why it feels real.

Keith Dewhurst and Elwyn Jones wrote this, John Black directed, and the episode has a dry, late-night mood that suits the material. But the fun is in the logistics. Watt and his team need to be exactly where the lawnmowers are at exactly the right moment, and Doris's information has to hold. Grant and Pearson work alongside him. George Baker plays Chandler with the weary authority of a man who has been fencing since before some of the officers were born. Jill Dixon's Doris is the engine of the piece; John Salthouse's Billy Purvis is one of the villains in over his head. Elaine Donnelly, Ken Sicklen, George Sweeney and Clare Kelly fill out the edges.

There is a particular pleasure in an episode built on an overheard conversation and a date in a ledger. No glamour, no clever-clever games. Just a fence, a secretary with a plan, and a quantity of stolen garden machinery. And there is something quietly funny about the whole enterprise: a serious squad, gearing up for a transaction that will end with a van full of lawnmowers. The title says it all, really. Some cases are baked beans. This is one of them, and it is a good one.