The Bigger They Are

Leonard Gold is a wealthy entrepreneur with a photograph problem. Twenty-five years ago, as a soldier in Malaya, he was present at a massacre of civilians, and Harold Collins has the picture to prove it. The blackmail begins. Gold does what men in his position do: he turns to the two other former soldiers who were there that day. One is now a senior police officer. The other runs a security company.

Neither choice helps. The policeman's contribution is trying to stop Regan investigating at all, which tells you something about where his loyalties sit and puts him directly across Regan's path, never wise. The security man goes further, hiring mercenaries to lean on the blackmailers until they stop. And in the middle of it all, John Masterson, Gold's old commanding officer, breaks into a bank vault with two mercenaries and steals the photo and the rest of the evidence. Problem solved? Not quite. Once the job's done, Gold discovers Masterson is a far more dangerous blackmailer than Collins ever was.

That's the shape of Tony Hoare and Ian Kennedy Martin's script: every rescue costs more than the trouble it fixes. Mike Vardy directs, with Colin Jeavons making Gold a nervy, unhappy figure rather than a tycoon caricature, Raymond Skipp as Collins, Tony Steedman as Masterson and Jenny Runacre as Sharon. Donald Burton plays Chief Superintendent Grey, with Colin McCormack as David Wade and Ian Collier as Logan.

The title does a lot of quiet work here. The bigger they are, the harder somebody collects; the higher a man climbs from what he did in Malaya, the harder he falls when someone sells him a ladder back down. The Sweeney usually kept its villains in pubs and lock-ups. Sending Regan after army men, mercenaries and a vault job gives series four a bigger field to play in, and it suits the show.