Hunter/Hunted

The laser rifle Cowley hands Doyle to test is the kind of hardware this show loves, and it is almost certainly trouble. He was supposed to be testing the thing, and instead it is testing him. Doyle barely has time to be flattered before his flat is robbed while he is out on a date with Kathie Mason, and the rifle is gone. Then someone tries to kill him with it, and the theft stops being an equipment problem and becomes a personal one.

The trail leads through the usual CI5 channels. Bodie and Doyle lean on an informant, Maurice Richards, who is shot dead with the stolen rifle for his trouble, and another colleague is taken prisoner and used as bait. Every question Doyle asks makes the circle smaller, and every answer makes it more personal. The man behind it all is Preston, a disgraced former policeman who was sent to prison on Doyle's evidence and has come out with a long memory and a grudge. The episode's quiet question is its best feature: Preston knows Doyle's routine so well that somebody close to him must have supplied the details, and the suspicion hangs over the whole chase.

Brian Clemens and Anthony Read wrote it, and Anthony Simmons directed. Bryan Marshall plays Preston with a cold, patient anger that suits a revenge plot, and Cheryl Kennedy is Kathie Mason, the woman at the centre of that nagging question. John Stratton is Brownie, Tony Caunter is Maurice Richards, Frank Barrie is Martell, Diana Weston is Ruth and Martin Wyldeck is Jack, with Gordon Jackson's Cowley watching the mess develop from headquarters.

It is a neat piece of work, a cat-and-mouse story that keeps one paw on the mystery. And the answer to who tipped Preston off, when it comes, does not let anyone off the hook.