Bait

The bait in Bait is two women, and Regan is the fisherman. Vic Tolman, a vicious robber played by George Sewell, has stolen the wages from the firm where his girlfriend Lyn Hurst worked, and the Squad's way in is surveillance on a flat belonging to Joan Maskall, Lyn's sister, who's there looking after her daughter. So Regan and Carter watch, and wait, and eventually break the door in and use both women as bait to draw Tolman out.

It doesn't go to plan, of course. Before that, there's the episode's best turn: Lyn is injured in a road accident and, in the back of the ambulance, produces a gun, forces the vehicle to stop and simply walks away. It's a lovely piece of business, the moment where the girlfriend you'd written off as window dressing turns out to be part of the gang behind the wages theft at the Local Education Authority. Di Trevis plays her with just enough stillness that the reveal lands. You believe she could do it, too.

Trevor Preston and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it and Sid Roberson directed, the same pairing as Money, Money, Money the week before. Barbara Ewing is Joan, caught between family and the Flying Squad, and hers is the more interesting dilemma: she hasn't done anything except be related to the wrong people. Edward Peel plays Lennie, Arthur Cox is DCI Roan, with Eric Dodson as Mr. Dodds, Alan Hunter as Stoddard and Steven Barnes as Dr. Marland.

The Sweeney always liked plans that wobble, because a wobbling plan shows you who everyone really is. Here the plan wobbles considerably, and Sewell's Tolman is exactly the sort of cornered villain the show did best: dangerous, unpredictable and not half as clever as he thinks. Solid, workmanlike episode this one, with one genuinely great ambulance.