Selected Target

Two cell-mates, Titus Oates and Colly Kibber, plan a robbery the way most people plan a holiday: locked up, dreaming of the outside. The clever part comes after they are released. Instead of slipping away quietly, they stage a fight, throw in a kidnapping for good measure, and make sure the Sweeney sees it all. Nobody watching the scrap from a passing police car would guess the choreography involved. Regan takes the bait and trails Kibber, fairly sure the man has done for his old cell-mate.

The chase is the trick. Kibber leads the squad a merry dance around London while Oates, free of attention, sets about blackmailing a bank. By the time Regan has worked out what is really going on, it is too late, and the best the Flying Squad can manage is to watch the pieces fall where they may. It is a slow, patient sting, and the episode lets it breathe.

What gives it its edge is how completely Regan is played. He smells something off from the start, but suspicion and proof are different currencies, and Kibber trades on that. Watching a genuinely smart copper being led by the nose is a pleasure the show doesn't often allow itself, and Carter spends much of the hour running interference and swapping knowing looks.

Tom Clegg directs, and the script comes from the Kennedy Martin brothers, Troy and Ian, so the plotting has proper bones. Lee Montague's Kibber is slippery and watchful, while Ronald Fraser gives Oates a touch of amused menace. Maureen Lipman pops up as Mrs Smedley, and Peter Schofield, Jonathan Elsom and Basil Dignam fill out the police and banking ranks around John Thaw and Dennis Waterman.

It is a quieter entry than the show usually manages, and the better for it. No car chases worth the name, just two old lags out-thinking a squad of professionals for as long as they possibly can. And that is a trick worth a slow hand.