No One Likes To See That

Dennis Worsley does not go quietly. He blasts his way out of custody with explosives, and what follows is a proper manhunt: a dangerous man loose in London, the Armed Robbery Squad scrambling to catch up. DI Charlie Scott leads the chase, and the episode gives the pursuit a real sense of movement, of cars and radios and streets closing in. The more interesting half of it is private, though. Worsley is out for revenge, and DS Bob Tate sits at the top of his list.

The public half is a security van robbery with inside job written all over it. Someone knew the route and the schedule too well for luck. The squad works that line while Worsley nurses his grudges, and there are two of them: Tate, plus his wife Cathy's lover, who has also been marked for a visit.

And that split is the episode's cleverest move. The explosives and the van job make the noise; the real tension sits in the smaller, nastier business of one man's score-settling.

Roy Mitchell wrote it, Colin Gregg directed, and it first aired on 25 January 1996. Reece Dinsdale's Scott runs the squad with a calm, professional authority, and Brendan Coyle's Tate carries the personal danger: a copper marked out for punishment by a man with nothing left to lose. Jesse Birdsall gives Worsley the right blend of charm and menace; you can believe he chats politely before he hurts you. Around them sit Lynda Steadman's Helen Ash, Robert Willox's Ted Donachie, Gary McDonald's Alan Oxford, Pooky Quesnel's Grace Harris and David Sterne's Frank Uttley, with Beatie Edney as Cathy Worsley and Andrew Schofield as Michael Chater.

The two stories never quite join up, and that is fine. The van robbery is competent but conventional. The Worsley strand is where the episode earns its keep, because revenge only works when you can see the cost coming for both men. Worsley's freedom is the problem, and Tate knows it before anyone else.