Take Away

London's heroin trade gets a visit from the Hong Kong police, and the two forces sit awkwardly side by side. The lead lands with Doyle, who is paired with Esther, a Hong Kong officer in town tracking a Triad gang. The gang's racket is neat and nasty: drugs to American army personnel in Germany, with East German backing aimed at wrecking Anglo-American relations. Esther's best lead is a Chinese restaurant the Triads are leaning on, and Doyle's usual partners, two cocky Drugs Squad officers, do more to slow the case than solve it.

Bodie's half of the case is grim in a different way. He goes undercover as a down-and-out in a squat where two young junkies have died, which puts him right at the bottom of the city's food chain. The two halves of the operation come together at a motel for a shoot-out, and the result is not the clean win anyone hoped for. The motel confrontation brings Esther's case and Bodie's undercover world crashing together, with both sides paying for the meeting.

Brian Clemens and Roger Marshall wrote it, Douglas Camfield directed. Chai Lee is Esther, with John Forgeham as D.S. Colin and James Marcus as D.C. Jack, the two cocky Drugs Squad officers who make everyone's life harder. Gary Shail is Jimmy, Phil Brown is Callahan, Sharon Duce is Annie and Pik Sen Lim is Chai Ling.

The episode earns points for showing the trade from the street up. The squat scenes are properly bleak, and Bodie in a sleeping bag in a derelict house is a long way from the show's usual glamour. It is a busy hour, two investigations running side by side, and the ending deliberately refuses to wrap things up tidily.

The show is better when it lets the mess show, and this one leaves a fair amount of it on screen.