Thin Ice

Gerald Bishop is the sort of crook the papers call a kingpin, and he has done the one thing that always gets under Regan's skin: he has gone abroad. France, specifically, where extradition is somebody else's problem. The law let him slip, and an arrogant superintendent called Pringle is happy to explain why that's simply how it is. Pringle's line is that you can't pull a man back from France on a whim, and the argument between the two of them runs through the episode like a sore tooth. Regan's face during that conversation is worth the price of admission.

But Regan has a plan, and it is not one any superintendent would approve. Bishop is sentimental about one thing: his dog. So the dog goes missing, word reaches France that it can be found in London, and the prize crook comes home to collect his pet, straight into the arms of the Flying Squad. It's daft and almost sweet, and it works. The episode leans into the absurdity of the trap without ever winking at the audience.

Troy Kennedy Martin and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, Tom Clegg directed. Alfred Marks makes Gerald Bishop a properly charming villain, the kind you almost like, and Peter Jeffrey's Pringle is splendidly smug. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman head it up as Regan and Carter, with Garfield Morgan's Haskins, Morris Perry's Maynon and Brian Glover's Moose in support, plus Bill Dean, Brian Wilde and John Flanagan.

The dog is the best thing in it, and the show knows it. There's a lovely silliness to the whole scheme that sits well against the usual shouting and car doors, proof that the series could do a light touch when it wanted. It's the kind of plot that would never survive contact with a real force, and nobody pretends otherwise. An episode that brings a crime kingpin down with his own dog is hard to dislike.