Foxhole on the Roof

A newly-released convict has taken a post-operative hospital ward hostage, and he's doing it from a rooftop. He's dug himself into a makeshift foxhole on a warehouse roof across the way, machine gun trained on the patients below, and his price for letting them live is one million pounds. The ward is the bargaining chip, and the clock starts running. Down in the streets the police have the area sealed off, and the only people in a position to do anything about the man on the roof are the ones with the right kind of nerve.

The man behind the siege is Roddy Barker, an embittered old lag, with a young accomplice, Stacey, planted among the hostages disguised as a woman. CI5's first answer is height. Bodie and ace climber Murphy scale a factory chimney to get above the foxhole and nearly wreck the whole operation doing it. Doyle takes a slower route, and it's the smarter one. A visit to Stacey's girlfriend gives him the angle everyone else missed, and the plan that finally ends the standoff is his. It works because it comes from listening to the people Barker forgot to watch.

Brian Clemens wrote it, William Brayne directed. Gordon Jackson's Cowley, Martin Shaw's Doyle and Lewis Collins's Bodie carry the regular side, with Steve Alder's Murphy along for the climb. The guests are good value. Stanley Meadows makes Barker properly nasty, and Karl Howman, years before he'd charm his way through Brush Strokes, is a convincing Stacey. Ron Pember's Jack Cobber, Robert Putt's Inspector Newton, C.J. Allen's Sgt. Wood and Roderic Leigh's Dunston fill out the edges.

It's one of those episodes where the premise is dafter than the execution. A man with a gun on a roof should be a one-scene problem, and the show stretches it to a full hour without it sagging. The rooftop geometry does most of the work. And it's a reminder that for all the firepower, the moment that cracks the case is a quiet conversation with a girlfriend.