Trap

Five years before "Trap" begins, Regan earned his promotion on the back of the Golden Maid dairy robbery. The tip-off that made his name came from a man called Noah Riley. Now that past is coming back to collect. A reporter named Thomas has got hold of Noah and made him an offer: money for his elderly mother, if he'll say Regan acted illegally on the Golden Maid case. Old favours, it turns out, are debts.

Regan sees the plot for what it is. But the one man who could clear him has gone to ground, so he does the single thing guaranteed to make matters worse: he works the case without telling Haskins. The trap of the title closes on him from both sides. Inside the force he faces suspension. Outside, the original dairy robbers are still about, and they are perfectly willing to hurt Noah's mother to keep the past buried. Somewhere in the middle, Regan and Carter keep being photographed by people they don't know, and no one can say why.

Help may come from Manny Bellow, the mini-cab boss whose ear is always to the ground. Whether he knows enough to crack it is the question. And Sydney Tafler plays him with exactly the right twinkle.

Ray Jenkins and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, and Jim Goddard directed. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman carry it as Regan and Carter, with Garfield Morgan's Haskins circling the edge of the investigation. Kenneth Colley is Noah Riley, a man trying to balance a conscience against a frightened mother. Bernard Kay plays Thomas, Elizabeth Begley is Mrs Riley, and Geoffrey Whitehead and Brian Hall round out the supporting cast as Mills and Ernie Davies.

Regan has faced harder men than Thomas with his hands in his pockets. What he can't beat so easily is the rulebook of his own force, and the episode knows it.