Spy Probe

Somebody is paying a group of professional killers to assassinate retired government officials, and the targets are so unremarkable that the job looks like a waste of good bullets. Doyle and Bodie, each working without the other knowing, go undercover as hitmen to find out who's placing the orders and why. The organisation isn't fussy about its clientele, and its clients are quiet men the papers have forgotten. The trick is making the connection before the next name on the list stops being alive.

Bodie's assignment is the odd one. His target, Liz Walsh, turns out to be an old colleague of Cowley's, and instead of dying she agrees to collude in her own supposed death. The fake killing buys her a publicity platform and gives Cowley a witness on the inside. Between the two threads the operation starts to take shape. And then MI6 wades in and nearly collapses it. By the time the dust settles, the list of retired nobodies makes sense, and the person responsible turns out to be closer to home than anyone expected.

Brian Clemens and Tony Barwick wrote it, Dennis Abey directed. Joyce Grant's Liz Walsh is the quiet centre of the hour, all nerve and calculation. Around her, Paul Daneman's Dawson, Graham Crowden's Minister, Patrick Ryecart's Williams, Barry Stanton's Ferris, Nick Stringer's Twig and Raymond Brody's Kovac keep the pressure on. Crowden, a few years away from running one of television's more peculiar medical practices, is worth the ticket price alone.

The episode's neatest trick is making the victims the boring ones. Nobody famous, nobody worth the bullet on paper, which is exactly why the conspiracy needed them dead. It's a proper little spy puzzle, and it lets the boys do what they do best: lie convincingly and hand the truth back to Cowley with the corners folded down. The MI6 side of things gives the whole affair a nice bureaucratic tang.