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llywelaTime for another Pros recap, on behalf of Prosfanfic
The episode opens on a scene of furtive shadiness, with a bunch of shifty looking security agents of indeterminate origin setting themselves up on rooftops with surveillance equipment and rifles and whatnot, communicating via hand held radios. Meanwhile, a young woman wanders along nearby with a camera cunningly not well concealed in her handbag, filming their activities. As a car arrives, drives into a garage, and is concealed, whereupon one of the agents belatedly spots the woman and calls out to her, hastily giving chase when she immediately legs it at speed.
The pursuer chases the woman into a subway beneath a busy road, whereupon she whips out a gun and fires at him. He evades the shot, yells at her to stop or he'll fire, and when she continues to try to escape, shoots her dead before quickly claiming the custody of the camera that cost her life.
Titles.
Dead Girl's wobbly final footage plays out amid sombre silence. Silence, that is, until Cowley starts weighing in with a commentary, picking out Pursuer as the camera sweeps past him and identifying him as the detective Dead Girl pulled the gun on, who subsequently pulled his own gun on her and proved to have a much better aim. He explains it rather more concisely than that, though. He also explains that there was no one important in the car.
Cowley: "It was a dummy run."
Doyle: "Where've we heard that one before?"
Ooh, nice, nice little reference back to Blind Run there.
It was a security rehearsal, Cowley continues undeterred, ignoring this flippancy, for the arrival of one Kamal Khadi, a leading Palestinian. Khadi is due to arrive the following Thursday for secret talks with the Foreign Office, at the venue that has proved so spectacularly to be no longer secure. Cowley shows the Lads a picture of Khadi with his head of security, Aziz Doud, who is fanatically protective of his leader and was reluctant for Khadi to visit Britain even before this happened. Therefore, the location was being kept super top-secret, and even Doud wasn't to know of it until hours before the meeting took place.
Bodie: "Do you feel a drip?"
Doyle: "Think he means a leak."
Cowley continues to ignore the banter as he resolutely carries on with the exhaustive exposition, detailing the only two people in this country, outside of "our own security" who were privy to the location. The first was Colonel Roger Masterson MP, a personal friend of Khadi and instrumental in setting up the visit.
Doyle wonders who the other person was, and Cowley glares at him. "On your toes, man – the girl who took the film!" Hee.
Thinking about 'our own security' – there were a fair few agents involved in that, and they all knew the location, although whether they knew who it was for is another matter. You'd have to assume every office/agent involved in the preparations would have to be investigated, surely.
Anyway, Cowley now details Dead Girl, one Pilar Hernandez, who arrived in the country from Spain just a few days previously, supposedly as a student, fingerprints drawing a blank in several countries, and so on.
Whoa, info dump or what in this scene. No wonder the Laddish banter got tossed in to season the pot!
One piece of luck has emerged, Cowley goes on to explain – after circulating Pilar's picture in the local paper, a neighbour came forward to identify her, so they know where she was staying, which is under investigation now, of course.
Unless Khadi has second thoughts, the meeting is intended to go ahead as planned, with a new venue being chosen that even Cowley himself doesn't know yet. Special Branch have already replaced the entire security detachment with other men, none of whom will be told the identity of Khadi.
Cowley: "All we have to do now is find that leak and stop it. If we don't…"
Bodie: "Khadi gets wet."
Cowley: "We all do."
Block of flats, somewhere in London. A Nosy Neighbour stands around openly gawking as Bodie wanders up to the specific flat Pilar stayed at during her brief stay in the country, before her untimely demise at the hands – okay, gun – of Special Branch.
Inside, Bodie makes himself known to Pilar's American flatmate, Shelley Hunter, who groans in dismay. "Not another one – I already have him!" She gestures helplessly at the Random Agent currently rooting through her personal belongings with a deeply officious air. Bodie is a definite improvement.
Bodie: "He's Forensics – CID. I'm CI5."
Shelley: "What's the difference?"
Bodie: "Well, he's a technician, I'm an intellectual."
Shelley snickers just as openly as do fond viewers, and Bodie doesn't mind at all. He mildly broaches the subject of Shelley's deceased roommate, and her irritation comes flooding out.
Shelley: "It's unbelievable. I rent a room to this sweet little thing who looks like a nun, and then after I get back from a one-night stopover in Brussels, I find she's been killed in a shootout with the cops!"
Put like that, it does sound rather tiresome. Bodie casually helps himself to a guitar that's just lying around the place and sits himself down to have a quick strum while he continues the questioning. Bodie Babes start fanning themselves.
Shelley: "I thought British policemen didn't carry guns."
Bodie: "Well, the ones that direct traffic to Trafalgar Square don't."
On questioning, Shelley explains that she'd simply put an ad in the local paper for a flatmate, and Pilar was the best candidate who applied – "I had six others and they were all lunatics!" She belatedly thinks to ask if he drinks on duty, and he dutifully tells her he doesn't before going on to ask if she still has the paper with the ad in it. Very thorough. Shelley thinks it might not have been thrown away yet. On being asked if Pilar had said anything about herself, all she can come up with is "music student, I think."
Bodie smiles. "You didn't like her, did you?" Shelley shrugs that Pilar was nice enough. "You don't seem terribly upset," Bodie pushes.
Shelley coolly tells him that the life of an airhostess isn't so glamorous. "You have no roots, bob around the world, put on a big act for a million strangers, and smile till your face hurts. No, I'm hard to upset."
Bodie takes a moment to appreciate the view as she bends to dig out the newspaper with her flatmate advert – take note of those patches on the backside of her jeans. They will become important later. "There's your ad, Sherlock," says Shelley with a bright smile.
Sir Roger Masterson's Luxury Pad. The man himself offers thanks to Cowley for taking over security arrangements, expressing regret that the Foreign Office hadn't had him overseeing things from the start. He introduces Cowley to his assistant, Frances Cottingham, and admits that Khadi's people have been told about the incident, expressing unwillingness to undermine their relationship by keeping things from him. "He's putting his life in my hands."
"I'm the one who set up this meeting and I'm the only one they'll trust," he continues, adding that he'd given Khadi and Doud the details for the meeting in person, flew out there especially, rather than hold such a sensitive conversation over the phone, even with the scrambler in operation. Masterson had himself been given the location by Special Branch.
"Chief Inspector Smith," Frances helpfully supplies the name, bustling around the room making herself useful throughout the conversation, our first clue that Frances is privy to all this most sensitive of information, as well. This time, however, Masterson would prefer to hear it from Cowley, and Cowley rather grimly agrees. His grimness, one would guess, stems from the enormous headache this case has presented him with.
Shelley's Building. A decidedly dressed-down Doyle…nah, actually, that's pretty much how he usually dresses. Anyway, Doyle ascends the stairs, bag in one hand and an armful of books in the other. Undercover! I love it when they go undercover. Juggling books, bags and doorkey proves to be something of a challenge too far, and the noise he makes as he tries to get the door of one of the flats open, knocking things over and dropping all his books, quickly brings Nosy Neighbour out to see what's going on, broom in hand so she can give the appearance of business while she noses.
"I'm moving in," Doyle tells her, spinning a vague story about renting it from Terry, who normally lives there, via the Student's Union. Wonder how CI5 swung that – there's got to be a story of some kind there.
Nosy Neighbour: "You still at college, then?"
Doyle: "Yeah, still."
Nosy Neighbour: "Bit old to be a student, aren't you?"
Doyle: "Yeah, well I'm a post-graduate student."
Hee. Doyle as an English post-grad. Having established all that, Nosy Neighbour is quick to tell him about the girl living upstairs who got shot by the police. "I saw her picture on the television. I called the police, that's how they knew she lived here."
And through all this conversation, Doyle has been gathering up all the books he dropped, and is just so damn casual, completely embodying his undercover role, it's great fun to watch.
Having extricated himself from Nosy Neighbour, Doyle gets on the R/T to Bodie, who is sitting around in his car someplace.
Bodie: "You all right?"
Doyle: "Yeah, natives are a bit friendly."
Bodie: "Yeah, problem?"
Doyle: "No, I'll just take the rotor arm out of her broomstick. Listen, the guy who had the flat before me, what'd he do?"
Bodie: "Oh, he's a ballet dancer. Very nice."
Hee. And that was just such a pointless conversation – total fluff and filler. But so much fun, as so many R/T conversations are.
The Masterson Place. As they wander in from the garden and on through the house, in a very nicely shot scene, Cowley asks about Masterson's assistant, Frances Cottingham. Sir Roger exposits for us that she never married and lives with her invalid mother, devoted to her.
Cowley: "Very noble of her."
Masterson: "It's a waste of a damn good wife, if you ask me."
Eh, men.
Masterson continues to sing the praises of Frances, who has been with him for ten years, completely loyal. No boyfriends in that time, although not for want of trying on the part of Mrs Masterson, apparently. "The trouble is she doesn't ever meet anyone, except her damned mother."
As he sees Cowley to the door, Masterson continues that he has staked his political career on these talks with Khadi, not just his word with Khadi himself. So a successful outcome to this case – identifying the leak and ensuring the safety of all participants at the talks – is very important to him. And thus, by extension, very important to Cowley, too.
Hopping into his car, Cowley gets straight on the blower to Bodie, who is having a busy day on the R/T. Informing Bodie that he has an assignment for him, he takes time to check that Doyle has been installed in the flat successfully.
"How come the bionic golly gets all the best bits?" Bodie grumbles.
Shelley's Building. Shelley herself wanders downstairs, just as Doyle is lurking around on his new doorstep with a couple of empty milkbottles in hand.
"Hallo. I'm Ray Duncan…" Doyle begins, all affability.
"Course you are, sweetheart." Shelley blows him off completely as she sweeps past and continues on downstairs.
Doyle rolls his eyes at her departing back. "I'm your new neighbour."
With the coast so conveniently clear, he quickly scoots upstairs to Shelley's flat, expertly picks the lock – so much for the 'not a cat burglar' thing from Backtrack – and pokes around sabotaging the water heater.
Bodie's car. He's sitting around, still, on stakeout.
Doyle (on R/T): "Four-five to three-seven."
Bodie: "Come in, schoolboy."
Hehe.
Doyle: "Want to raise the bet?"
Bodie: "You've seen her."
Doyle: "Passed her on the stairs."
Bodie: "And she blanked you?"
Doyle: "Want to raise the bet?"
Tehehe. Betting on whether or not Doyle can bed the witness/suspect he's gone undercover to monitor, tut tut. They know each other so well. The R/T conversations in this episode are so much fun. Bodie agrees to raise the bet, but then puts the conversation on hold as his quarry emerges from the house opposite – it's Frances Cottingham. Every potential leak must be checked out, no matter how innocent or loyal they appear to be. Watching her get into her car, he starts the engine of his own, and quickly finishes the conversation just in time to follow her.
Doyle: "Horses for courses."
Bodie: "Yeah, well, don't get tangled in your mane. Out."
That's some good advice, there, if a little oblique – it's never a good idea to get emotionally entangled with the potential suspect you're keeping surveillance on. They both come up against that issue in this episode, in their differing ways, and both manage to maintain their professionalism regardless.
Later. Shelley arrives home and trots upstairs. Doyle quietly emerges from his flat to watch her go, looking satisfied.
Elsewhere. Looking rather harried, Frances parks her car and hurries up the steps toward what looks like a theatre building. Bodie pulls up nearby and follows, stopping to watch as she hangs around outside, waiting for someone. That someone quickly arrives – a tall, dark man considerably younger than she is, whom she greets with a passionate kiss. So much for the 'no boyfriends ever' thing. They head into the theatre together.
Flats. Doyle comes flying out of his flat at the sound of a loud bang from upstairs. Funny that – you'd almost think he was waiting for it….
He races upstairs, watched by a curious Nosy Neighbour, and bangs on the door. A very stressed Shelley lets him in, clad in a very short pink silk dressing gown, and wonders if he knows anything about water heaters, as hers just blew up. And, as we've so recently seen, our Ray does indeed know a thing or two about water heaters. He knows how to make them blow up, and he knows how to fix them again afterward. Quite the plumber, in fact.
Doyle: "Must have given you hell of a shock."
Shelley: "Maybe I hurt its feelings."
So then, just as planned, the ice is broken. Seems a rather extreme way to get the girl's attention, but he's on a deadline, I suppose.
Shelley: "By the way, I'm Shelley."
Doyle: "Course you are."
Shelley: "You got me."
She's an interesting character is Shelley. Because…she's so good at keeping a game face on, playing a part, but her fling with Doyle is something she does just for herself, because she actually likes him. Or fancies a fling, or whatever. There's no hidden agenda to her relationship with him, not on her side, anyway. She doesn't know who he is – just some guy who moved into her building. But he knows that she's a potential suspect that he needs to get close to in order to learn more about her for the sake of the case. So the act he puts on for her is for her benefit completely. The act she puts on for him is an act that she plays for everyone around her, every day.
Now that they are talking, they keep talking, and in no time at all Doyle has persuaded Shelley to let him cook dinner for her. Working fast there, boy.
Theatre. Bodie is hanging around outside waiting for Frances and her toyboy to come back out. He gets on the R/T to inform Cowley of this development.
Cowley: "You're sure it's a boyfriend, there's a big difference."
Bodie: "I know, I think I can remember."
Heh.
Bodie: "Anyway, in this case there's another difference. Twenty years."
Atypical behaviour at such a crucial time – that's enough to have Frances Cottingham put under full and total surveillance, Cowley promising Bodie some backup as soon as it can be arranged.
Elsewhere. Cowley parks his car and continues on foot. Behind him, a couple of Middle Eastern men likewise hop out of their car and follow him. Turns out, this is Aziz Doud and Khadi's Personal Assistant, Hassan Alousha, ahead of schedule. Cowley disapproves of this early arrival. Doud informs him that the dead girl has been identified as a member of the Palestinian Marxist Alliance.
Cowley sounds even more disapproving as he says that the politics are irrelevant – he's more interested in knowing why these men have come over when he gave express orders that they were not to do so until he'd cleared it.
Alousha: "They are not politicians, they are a guerrilla army!"
I'm…really not going to get into the semantics of the very fine dividing line between recognised political groups and terrorist organisations. Suffice it to say that this issue is as relevant today as it was back then.
Doud and Alousha anxiously continue that this group have enormous resources, and that Khadi will be in enormous danger if he comes to England now. Cowley, stonefaced, insists that he will be in good hands. "I will personally guarantee his safety."
Them's some high stakes the Cow is playing for here.
Doud isn't willing to take Cowley's word for it, huffily informing the CI5 Controller that under the circumstances they will have to take their own measures. Cowley does not look happy.
Doud: "They will be efficient, Mr Cowley."
Cowley: "Whatever they are, they'd better not interfere with mine."
The Arabs wonder what Cowley is going to do, exactly, but he refuses to be drawn. That's his business. He stalks away back to his car, fuming icily.
Doyle's New Flat. Doyle potters around all domestic like, whistling a jaunty tune as he sets a little flower in a makeshift vase on the table, really pushing the boat out, student-style. He's distracted from his dinner-date preparations by the insistent buzzing of the R/T, so stops to take the call. It's Bodie, of course.
Bodie: "What's happening?"
Doyle: "Is this an emergency call?"
Bodie (smirking): "Well, not unless you're out your depth."
Doyle: "Yeah, well I'll wave if I start drowning."
Bodie: "Oh yeah. Well, I'll buy you a wreath with all that money you're gonna owe me."
Heh. Shelley's arrival forestalls any more idle chit-chat, and Doyle hastily stows the R/T so he can go let her in, and whip the takeaway out of the oven.
Doyle: "Water heaters I can manage. Biryani I have to sub-contract."
Theatre. Bodie continues to kick his heels outside, bored rigid, not even able to while away a bit of time bantering with Doyle by radio, what with his partner having pulled a much plumber assignment on this one and being otherwise occupied. Bodie has never been fond of stakeouts, we remember.
Doyle's Flat. Over dinner, Doyle has got Shelley onto the subject of her recently deceased flatmate, and she chatters readily enough about how they were only in the flat together for one night, that she'd seemed okay, said she was homesick, talked about her parents and kid brother. It all sounds harmless enough, but what Doyle has to determine is if that was the cover story Pilar used to dupe her innocent flatmate, or if they were in it together and this now is the cover story Shelley is using to convince the world of her own innocence.
Theatre. Frances leaves alone, before the concert's finished. Bodie gets straight on the R/T to inform Cowley. Then he scoots on over to the theatre to see where lover boy has got to.
Doyle's Flat. Shelley is now questioning Doyle about his poetry studies. "Should find my name pretty romantic," she flirts, which almost blows his cover, as he doesn't have the faintest idea what she's talking about.
Doyle: "Hunter?"
Shelley: "Shelley. He was a romantic poet, wasn't he?"
Well, yeah, and a post-graduate English student should know that. Doyle quickly digs himself back out of the hole with an awful Frankenstein impression and by knowing that Shelley's wife wrote the book, which has Shelley completely confused. "Well, they were living in sin, anyway," he amends. Heh. The two of them are talking at complete cross-purposes throughout this scene, neither having the faintest idea what the other is on about, but it does prove that Doyle knows a thing or two about English literature after all!
Theatre. Bodie comes sprinting back out again so as not to lose the trail of Frances. She gets back into her car and drives away; Bodie pursues, all disgruntled about the non-appearance of those reinforcements Cowley promised him.
Doyle's Flat. Doyle and Shelley share a giggle while washing the dishes, getting along like a house on fire.
Shelley: "It's been a good evening, Ray."
Doyle: "Why's it have to end now?"
Shelley: "I'm flying at six."
Doyle: "Doesn't it make your arms ache?"
He wraps an arm around her from behind and starts kissing her neck. Fangirls go all gooey and wish they were Shelley. Shelley seems to enjoy it, too.
Streets of London. Frances drives. Bodie pursues, but not all that stealthily, it has to be said. Good thing she hasn't been trained to spot a tail. She pulls up outside her house and heads on in, so Bodie radios into base that she's home and to send in a night man.
Doyle's Flat. Doyle and Shelley are snuggled up in bed together, nice and cosy for a first date. I believe this is what they call 'mixing business with pleasure'. Shelley is fast asleep, Doyle not so much, as a noise upstairs in Shelley's flat draws his attention. He wakes her with a gentle shake, and whispers: "Have you got a very large cat up there?"
Shelley isn't awake enough to have any idea what he's talking about, but another bang on the floor of her apartment does the job of industrial strength coffee, and then she's wide awake.
Doyle leaps out of bed and pulls his jeans on, and this is the slo-mo moment to end all slo-mo moments, one to replay over and over again, just for that split second flash of bare backside we are treated to….
We almost catch a glimpse of Shelley's equally bare backside as she dives after him, blanket wrapped around herself, trying to stop him from going up there. To no avail, though, as he is off.
Up in Shelley's flat, a couple of rather inept burglars are ransacking the joint, apparently none too concerned about being seen and identified, as they aren't wearing masks, although they do have gloves on.
Pulling his leather jacket on over a bare chest, Doyle cautiously makes his way upstairs. He reaches the door just as the burglars are on their way out, and fighting ensues. BIFF! POW! THWACK!
One of the burglars then pulls out a gun, which alters the odds slightly, but Shelley's arrival diverts his attention enough for Doyle to kick his gun hand aside. Doyle then grabs Shelley and hauls her into the nearest room for cover. Recovering, the burglar fires a couple of warning shots, and then the two of them make a speedy exit, out of the kitchen window.
Doyle gives chase, much to Shelley's dismay. The burglars clamber over rooftops and verandas. Doyle does likewise, trailing doggedly in their wake. The burglars drop onto a handy scaffolding nearby. Doyle pursues. The unarmed burglar makes it down to the ground and away, but Doyle manages to tackle the gunman, and more fighting ensues. A nasty blow to the stomach causes Doyle to lose his man briefly, but fortunately the man himself seems to have lost his gun, as he is no longer making any attempt to use it. He runs again. Doyle chases him again. There is more fighting, and Doyle hits the deck. The burglar goes to smash him in the face with a brick, but Doyle kicks out, hard, and the man goes flying off the scaffolding and down to the ground below. "Arrrrrrgh!" Splat!
Shelley's Flat. Doyle clambers back in through the kitchen window and gives a very shaky Shelley a big hug. "Until you waved I thought you'd fallen," Shelley reproachfully tells Doyle. They each reassure the other that they are okay, and then Shelley wonders about the other burglar, whether or not he'll come back. Doyle doesn't know, but he does know that he could use a drink after all that exertion so early in the morning.
"What are you majoring in? Counter-insurgency?" Shelley wonders. Because have-a-go heroing by English post-grad students really isn't something that anyone ought to encourage, of course.
"I used to be a Marine," Doyle casually tells her, and he makes it sound so natural and plausible, as well, the lies just rolling off his tongue the whole time they are together.
"I bet they were sorry when you left," she snorts, pouring him a quick snifter.
Doyle asks if 'that girl' left anything, but Shelley shakes her head that the police took it all. Drink downed, Doyle heads for the phone and starts dialling for an ambulance. "That guy might still be alive, you know."
Hospital. Doyle drives up and parks outside. Inside, Cowley stands frowning at the bedside of the gunman, whose head is so heavily bandaged he's practically mummified. Doyle arrives, and Cowley quietly asks where Shelley is now.
"Left the country. Zurich. Oh don't worry, Wilson's on the plane with her," Doyle reports. She did say she had a flight at six, we remember. Probably just as well she had those burglars to act as an alarm clock, really.
Elsewhere. Bodie is having a ride in a lift. Reaching his destination, he knocks on the door of someone's flat, and a small dog starts yapping furiously on the other side. This is the home of Frances Cottingham and her invalid mother, who opens the door with great suspicion to be greeted by Bodie's most dazzling smirk. "Electricity – I've come to read the meter."
Mrs Cottingham lets him in, her yappy little dogs yapping madly the whole time, and directs him to the meter box. She really should've asked to see some ID first. Smiling and nodding still, Bodie makes a great show of taking the details down – oh, and I like that he puts a newspaper on the chair he stands on, to avoid footprints on her furniture. Nice touch.
"Right, I'll just check the appliances now," he breezes, exuding confidence and swagger of the kind that helps conmen and undercover agents get away with just about anything. Mrs Cottingham suspiciously remarks that they've never done that before, and he reassuringly assures her that they are always trying to improve their service.
Hospital. Doyle sits at the Mummified Gunman's bedside with a cup of tea, regarding the man thoughtfully. Cowley wanders back in again to see how he's doing. "No change," is the answer. Doyle asks about the gun, only to learn that the serial number was filed off. Cowley hands him a newspaper. 'Gunman falls from roof' reads the front-page headline.
Doyle: "Think that'll do it?"
Cowley: "We don't want to make it too obvious."
I really like the way Doyle and Cowley interact in this scene, less like boss and underling and more like colleagues, equals.
Cottingham residence. The phone rings, and Mrs Cottingham answers. It's Frances, and Mrs Cottingham speaks rather peevishly to her, already uncomfortable with Bodie's presence, and unhappy about having her attention taken away from this intruder in her home. Rightly so, as the call proves rather convenient for Bodie, and he promptly takes the opportunity to sidle into another room while her back is turned. Mrs Cottingham is after him in a flash, preventing him from placing a bug under her phone, and he quickly breezes his way back out of the flat again. "Thank you, madam, there'll be no charge."
I like the way Mrs Cottingham is with Bodie in this scene, because it's so real. She's a spoilt and peevish old lady, sure, but she's also extremely vulnerable, so her suspicion of the interloper is not only understandable but commendable. She still loses points for not asking to see his ID, though.
Hospital. Doyle is still hanging around watching over the Mummified Gunman. Bored, he wanders out of the room and strikes up conversation with a random man hanging around in the lobby outside, presumably a fellow agent, showing him the newspaper report of the incident.
Van. Cowley and Bodie don headphones to listen in on the bugs Bodie did manage to plant in the Cottingham residence. Bodie calls HQ to get a trace on a phone number, while Cowley concentrates on the conversation Frances is having with her boyfriend, arranging to meet again. I like the way the sound of both overlap – hard to make out what's being said, but giving a real feel of immediacy to the scene. As Bodie finishes his call, Cowley chuckles as Frances tells her boyfriend about the man who came to see her mother that day. "A really nasty piece of work, she says." Bodie grins, also amused by the description.
HQ call back almost at once to inform Bodie that the number was traced to a public phone box.
Bodie: "Shall we bring her in, sir?"
Cowley: "After I've spoken to Masterson."
That little 'sir' that Bodie throws in so casually there contrasts nicely with the informality of Doyle's interaction with Cowley earlier. The partners are so very different in their outlook and attitude, Bodie's ex-soldier discipline versus Doyle's hail-fellow-well-met approach, and they each have such different relationships with Cowley.
Hospital. A couple of men dressed as hospital porters wheel a trolley toward Mummified Gunman's room, but are thwarted by Doyle, who appears at just the wrong moment, from their point of view, and recognises Aziz Doud. "What are you doing?" he wonders. They shove the trolley at him and run for it. Doyle gives chase, as does that nameless fellow agent he was talking to earlier. After a lot of running around, Doud is apprehended.
You've got to love how Doyle manages to look so professional, competent and dangerous a gunman while so very scruffily dressed.
Cottingham residence. The dogs yap madly at a knock on the door. Pulling on a dressing gown, Frances goes to see who it is, looking worried. As well she might. It's Cowley and Bodie.
"Mr Cowley, it's five-thirty in the morning," she protests.
"Having been up all night I'm only too aware of the time," Cowley gently tells her.
Frances wonders if it can't wait till later, but Cowley, still very gently, insists that it can't. She relents, removes the chain, and lets them in.
From her bedroom, Mrs Cottingham peevishly calls to ask what's going on. Frances is irritated that her mother has been woken, hurriedly reassures her that there's nothing wrong, and then rejoins her unwelcome visitors.
"I'd like you to listen to something," says Cowley, gesturing to Bodie, who moves to play a tape recording for her.
The recording is of Frances' conversation with boyfriend Luis earlier. She asks to see him that night; he evades and tells her he can't. She whispers that she thinks they are being watched. "A man from the electricity board. Mother thinks he was snooping. A nasty piece of work she says."
Mother has pretty good instincts, really. He was snooping.
Frances looks mortified as the recording plays, like her whole world is crumbling around her. Cowley wonders what she's got to say for herself.
"You're utterly and completely wrong," Frances insists. "But I can see how it sounds from your point of view."
"Perhaps you would enlighten us," Cowley suggests. "Who is this 'Luis'?"
"A man I know," says Frances, which is nice and vague, and then at further prompting admits that they are having an affair.
Bodie asks if Luis is the man she met yesterday evening, and Frances looks a little startled that anyone knows about that, that she was followed so closely, but admits that yes, he is. Luis Delgado is his name, a Spanish post-graduate student at the Royal Academy of Music.
Pilar Hernandez was also supposed to be a music student, we remember.
Cowley asks why they were both so worried about being watched. Frances looks very sheepish as she explains that Luis has a very jealous wife. Cowley wonders how he supports this wife, and Frances defensively says that he doesn't, she has money of her own.
Bodie: "So he lives off her, does he?"
Frances: "He has very little money."
She hasn't met his wife, she tells them on further questioning, and has known Luis for about a year. The questions come thick and fast now – has she ever seen the wife, do they have children, do they live together, where do they live? Frances grows increasingly flustered as she tries to answer this barrage of questions, but maintains her dignity as she gives the address.
Bodie: "He's never shown you a photograph of his wife? Why not?"
Frances: "Because I wouldn't want to see a photograph of his wife."
Cowley tells her they are going to have to go into this a little more thoroughly, and he's sounding a little less gentle now. Frances is appalled and distressed, and Bodie uncomfortable.
Hospital. A random female agent drives Cowley there. He exits the car, and heads inside, where he finds Doyle and Doud lurking in the room of the Mummified Gunman, who is having his drip and whatnot removed by a nurse, indicating that he has finally got around to succumbing to his injuries.
"He died a few minutes ago." Doyle confirms this diagnosis, just as the nurse folds the sheet back to cover the face of the dead man, who shall remain unidentified.
"What about the other one?" Cowley wants to know.
"He got away," says Doyle. I thought Cowley already knew that. Unless he means Doud's associate? It isn't all that clear.
"His maker silenced him before you could," Cowley snips at Doud regarding the dead man.
"Kamal Khadi's visit is out of the question now," is all Doud has got to say for himself. Nothing if not single minded.
"Your guerrilla army charging about London is out of the question," Cowley fiercely retorts.
Doud reminds him that he prefers to work independently. "Particularly as your security is leaking so badly."
"There is no such thing as watertight security and you know that as well as I do!" Cowley snaps. He's really rattled by all this, the pressure weighing down on him.
And through all this ping-pong bickerfest of a power-struggle, Doyle has been lounging attractively against the wall in the background, jacket slung over his shoulder, thumb hooked in his belt, quietly observing and staying well out of it.
Calming down, Cowley adds that they seem to have found the weak link in this particular chain, and that perhaps Doud had better meet her. I like that although Cowley finds Doud's methods and interference annoying, he doesn't question the man's right to do so, in the circumstances, and is completely willing to work with him.
Outside the Masterson residence. Bodie is sitting in his car outside when two other cars pull up. Cowley seems to have lost his random female driver somewhere along the line, as he is now driving himself, with Doud as passenger. The other car contains Doud's colleague, Alousha, and the two of them quickly confer in Arabic as they head inside.
Inside the Masterson residence. Frances, scared and defensive, is interrogated regarding her relationship with Luis Delgado, specifically what she may or may not have told him about her work with Colonel Masterson. Frances insists that she has never talked to Luis about Kamal Khadi or the proposed visit. With Cowley, Masterson, Doud, and Alousha all asking questions, with varying degrees of sharpness and/or gentle encouragement, and Bodie lurking in the background, the pressure on her is enormous, and she finally cracks under the strain, ashamed of herself, and starts to talk.
Luis, says Frances, was ashamed of living off his wife and desperate to get away, but couldn't get a work permit to work in this country and so started writing articles for a Spanish magazine. "He needed one good scoop, to establish himself as a journalist."
And so she told him about the meeting, and hangs her head in shame as she admits it. Cowley looks to Bodie to shatter her illusions, and Bodie very quietly obliges – there is no Luis Delgado living at the address she has for him. "Neither does any young musician, Spanish or otherwise, with or without a rich wife." Luis Delgado has likewise never been enrolled as a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Music, or the Madrid Conservatoire.
And you can see Frances's heart breaking, right there on screen, as the enormity of it sinks in.
Later. Bodie brings Frances a cup of tea. Because he's just a big softy, really, and clearly feels a lot of sympathy for her. It's nice to see Bodie in this light, as he's usually portrayed as being less compassionate. Frances sits with her head in her hands, a broken woman.
Outside, Cowley confers with Doud. Looking as light-hearted as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders, Cowley is satisfied that, now that the leak has been identified and plugged, the rendezvous can be altered and Khadi's visit go ahead as planned. Doud dourly agrees. Cowley continues that he has already spoken to the Foreign Office, and a large country house has been made available. That's just a bit more up-market than that nondescript location we saw in the teaser.
"The meeting will take place under my personal supervision." Cowley's got a twinkle in his eye now – a hunter with his target almost in his sights. "If they still trust Luis Delgado," he enthusiastically plots. "We might be able to kill two birds with one stone."
Doud instantly realises where he's going with this and flatly tells him that they can't rely on Frances. He's seen just how broken she is.
"What've we got to lose?" Cowley smiles. He does love cooking up a good scheme. "The opposition are on a hiding to nothing."
Episode title – drink! Doud is completely blank, the expression meaning nothing to him.
"If Miss Cottingham is believed, the terrorists will come to where they can be dealt with," Cowley explains. "If she is not believed, then they still won't know where Khadi is going, and can do nothing."
Masterson joins them at this point, and protests that they can't use Frances like that. He obviously doesn't know Cowley as well as we do, because we've seen before, many times, that the Cow can be extraordinarily ruthless when he feels he has to be to get the job done. And he's playing for extremely high stakes here. "If the Khadi visit is as vital to British interests as you claim, Colonel, I don't think this is a chance we can afford to miss."
Outside. Bodie stalks back to his car, looking sullen and discontented, to call Doyle on the R/T. "What's keeping you?" he wants to know.
In his Undercover Flat, Doyle is packing. He promptly rattles off a stream of French that leaves Bodie completely nonplussed. "To leave is to die a little," he merrily translates for the sake of his bemused partner.
"Yeah, I know, but if you've fallen in love the bet reverts to me." Bodie gets his priorities straight. He might not be enjoying his end of the job, but that doesn't mean he's going to give Doyle any leeway regarding his – all the more reason not to, in fact.
Doyle laughs. "Bitter, eh?"
Bodie denies it. "Wilson's just called in from Heathrow, and Miss Jetstream's back in town," he teasingly suaves. The R/T banter really is the best part of this episode. "Clean as a whistle," he adds, going on to impart all the juicy details about Shelley's nocturnal exploits with the captain of the plane, as relayed by Wilson, who seems to have had a busy night keeping track of her.
"Gosh, thanks, Bodie," is all Doyle has got to say.
Flats. Doyle loads up his car with all the random clutter he moved in to make his residence there look convincing. He gets into the car just as another one pulls up opposite, and adjusts his mirror to watch Shelley being dropped off by a Middle-Eastern-looking man and sharing an affectionate goodbye kiss with him. He rolls his eyes with a sigh at this evidence of just how much of a casual fling he was for her, and drives away, rather than instantly thinking 'hmm, Arab – suspicious!" After all, Shelley is no longer a suspect, with Frances identified as the weakest link.
Inside the Flats, Shelley knocks on Doyle's door before she's even taken her bag up to her room. Female version of the sailor who likes to have a girl in every port, clearly.
"He's gone," Nosy Neighbour tells her, enjoying the juiciness of the gossip she's had to pass on just lately. "Gone for good, just took his bags and left."
Shelley looks a little disappointed as she heads upstairs to her own flat.
Masterson residence. "Mr Cowley, I feel very ashamed," says a drained Frances, gathering all her wits and courage. "I've obviously been very foolish. But what can I do? I've told you where I arranged to meet the man I knew as Luis. But as to his true identity and who he's working for…you'll have to ask him yourselves. I don't know."
Cowley nods, and then lays it on the line for her. If they apprehend Luis now, they may never find out who he is working for. If she doesn't meet him as planned, he'll become suspicious. Clueless, Frances offers to cancel the meeting. Masterson leans toward her, all paternal and reassuring as he tells her that they don't want her to cancel the meeting. Startled and wary, Frances wonders what they do want.
"Luis will want to know where the talks with Khadi are going to take place," Cowley tells her, taking a card out of his wallet. "This is the address you're to give him."
Frances looks shaken to her core as she takes the card, realising what they are asking – telling – her to do.
Hotel. Bodie drives Frances to her meeting with Luis. "You'll be all right," he tries to reassure her, although it comes out rather brusque, this not really being his forte. Without replying, or acknowledging him in any way, Frances gets out of the car, face set like stone.
Frances heads into the hotel, and Bodie drives off to park up opposite. Another car pulls up nearby, and a random agent scurries over to hand Bodie a briefcase containing the radio equipment he's going to need to monitor Frances's meeting with Luis. As he gets set up, Cowley is dropped off by one of his random drivers and comes to join him. Bodie moves the briefcase just in time, as his boss gets in without first checking to see that the passenger seat is empty.
"Where's Doyle?" Cowley asks by way of greeting.
"Air sickness," Bodie tells him, without much enthusiasm. "Never was a good traveller."
Cowley ignores this flippancy and skips ahead to the issuing of orders. After 'this', Bodie is to trail Luis, while Doyle looks after Frances. "Oh, they can form a broken hearts club," Bodie sarcastically remarks, trying to cover that he's feeling sorry for the position Frances is in, and the way she is being used.
"You're a hard man, Bodie," Cowley tells him, evidently not having picked up on Bodie's distaste for this particular operation.
"Who'd you think you recruited, a cream puff?" says Bodie, defending his image.
Hotel: inside. A nervous Frances goes into her room and waits for Luis.
Hotel: outside. Bodie and Cowley watch as Luis arrives. Cowley tells Bodie that if Doyle isn't there in time, he's to get 'Victor' to keep an eye on Frances. Just who this Victor is and where Bodie is supposed to conjure him from is not explained. Presumably he's another random agent and is skulking about someplace nearby, unseen. Cowley gets out of the car, leaving Bodie alone with this less than pleasant assignment.
Hotel: inside. Frances sits on the bed, the picture of desolation. Luis arrives and is all smarmy and lovey-dovey. Frances just about manages to lose the dejected expression as she rises to kiss him. The look is soon back, but Luis fails to notice.
Hotel: outside. Bodie sits monitoring the bug Frances is presumably carrying someplace about her person. Doyle finally arrives. He greets his partner affably enough; Bodie is monosyllabic in response.
Doyle: "How's it going?"
Bodie: "The unacceptable face of espionage. It stinks."
Doyle nods his wordless agreement, and asks if she's told him yet.
Bodie: "No. Would you?"
Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage: inside. Frances and Luis lie in bed, post-coital. Luis is all snugly and manipulatively affectionate, while Frances lies staring off into space, facing away from him so he won't see her distress. Selling her body for the sake of her country, in penance for her weakness in falling for this man who paid her such flattering attention, after lonely years of devoted service to an invalid mother and high-powered employer. Luis is quickly onto the subject of his 'editor' in Madrid, and the money he has been offered, if only he can come up with a scoop.
"You know how much it means to me, to us," he implores. Outside in the car, Bodie and Doyle listen, grim faced. Bodie in particular looks like he's sucking on a lemon as Luis wheedles for Frances to give him the new location of the Khadi talks. "With the money we could become free," he tempts her.
Still staring desolately away into space, Frances asks him to tell her about his wife.
Outside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Doyle winces. "She's gonna blow it," he fears, while Bodie just shakes his head in mute disapproval of this entire scheme.
Luis wonders why Frances would ask about his wife; she points out that she doesn't know anything about her. And while she tries to get him to talk to her about the supposed other woman in her life, out in the car, Doyle pessimistically believes it's all over, while Bodie has rather more faith in Frances's ability to pull it off.
Doyle: "Double or quits?"
Bodie (grim): "Done."
Inside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Frances wonders in a very quiet voice if Luis's wife is beautiful. Luis's frustration with this line of questioning knows no bounds, and is really well done, because it is so vague – his attitude fits the profile both of a conman using her for the information she can give him, or that of the cad cheating on his wife and not wanting to be so reminded of the fact. Giving in, he unwillingly sighs that, yes, his wife is beautiful, and he could not sound more bored of this topic of discussion if he tried. Frances presses for more specific details regarding the beauty of the supposed Mrs Delgado.
"You're just hurting yourself now, she means nothing to me," Luis protests as he reluctantly describes his wife in a few terse replies to Frances's insistent questioning. Frances takes a deep breath and tells him she doesn't want to hear any more about the other woman. And then she unhappily tells him to look in her bag for the card giving the name of the hotel where the meeting is to be held. Luis reaches for the card, and reads the name on it: Crableigh Hotel.
Outside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Doyle reaches for his wallet with a wry smile. Bodie morosely tells him to forget it.
Crableigh Hotel. Cowley and Doud check out the lie of the land, and seem satisfied with it as a suitable decoy for the apprehension of any unwanted visitors, should they put in an appearance. Cowley takes an R/T call from Bodie, who informs him that: "the fish has taken the bait." Cowley smiles and instructs him to carry on as arranged, before relaying the news to Doud.
Doud: "To take it is one thing, to swallow it quite another."
I find myself inclined to like this Doud fella. He's single-minded about his work, prepared to personally do whatever it takes to get the job done, and can also be pretty amusing at times.
Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage. Luis leaves, satisfied on all counts. "All right, Romeo," Bodie growls at him from a distance, before turning to Doyle. "Listen, go easy on her, she'll be in a bit of a state," he advises, and I like that he cares so much about the effect all this is having on Frances. Doyle nods his agreement, and then peels off in the direction of his own car.
Luis drives away, and Bodie follows, sitting right on his tail, which doesn't strike me as terribly stealthy. Sure enough, Luis spots him almost at once, and is annoyed.
Frances, meanwhile, exits the hotel on foot, lost in a world of her own misery. Doyle, skulking furtively around nearby, follows in his car.
Roads of London. Luis is alarmed by Bodie's presence, driving along right behind him, and pulls over, evidently as a test of his own paranoia as much as anything else. Bodie's car sails on past, and within it Bodie watches in his mirror as Luis does a u-turn to head off in the opposite direction. Bodie promptly wrenches his own wheel around to do likewise, which, again, loses him stealth points. I'm sure he could have been a lot more subtle than that if he'd really tried.
Streets of London. Frances wanders unhappily along, dazed and forlorn. Doyle is following in his car, but soon parks up to continue his pursuit on foot. I fail to see why he is following her so secretively – I mean, if she was taken to her rendezvous with Luis by CI5, surely she deserves to be given a lift home again afterward, rather than being discarded like a used tissue as soon as her usefulness has been exhausted. Unless she is still under suspicion for some reason, and they want to monitor her secretly to see what she does next? It doesn't seem likely.
Roads of London. Bodie continues to screech along, pursuing Luis about as conspicuously as he possibly can, not even attempting to be discreet. I thought the whole point of this little exercise was for Luis to pass his new information on without finding out the authorities were onto him. Or is this an attempt to convince him that his information is genuine? Anyway, Bodie finally gets around to radioing into base with a description of Luis's car and registration number.
Still very alarmed by the fact that Bodie is so very obviously following him, Luis takes evasive manoeuvres, speeding up to get ahead of a minivan and thus almost causing an accident. Being right behind him, Bodie is forced to screech to a halt to avoid this near accident, and so loses his prey. Cowley chooses that moment to call on the R/T.
Cowley: "Three-seven, where are you?"
Bodie: "I wish I knew."
Streets of London. Frances wanders along in a daze, while Doyle follows at a discreet distance. She's in such a daze that she steps right into the road without looking where she is going, and is hit by a random passing car. Dismayed, Doyle sprints over to see what the damage is, and instructs the shocked driver to call an ambulance.
Masterson residence. Masterson gets an update on Frances's condition, and informs the CI5 team that Frances is going to be all right – his wife is staying with her at the hospital and will let them know of any further developments. I like that Masterson and his wife are so fond of Frances, and remain so in spite of everything, that they are so forgiving. Not that that'll save her job, of course. Masterson is blaming himself for ever agreeing to let her do it. Cowley points out that she wanted to do it. "It was the only way she could make amends."
Masterson wanders off, and Cowley starts to make final arrangements with his top team, sending Bodie to the airfield three hours before Khadi and his people arrive to stake out the perimeter with a handful of other random agents. Doyle, meanwhile, is to keep an eye on Doud at the Crableigh Hotel to see that he doesn't go over the top. I'm amazed that Doud, being so paranoid about Khadi's safety, is overseeing the sting against the insurgents rather than supervising the arrival of Khadi himself. Cowley is satisfied that by the time the PMA realise Luis has given them false information it'll be too late for them to prevent Khadi's mission.
Airfield. All kinds of hustle and bustle takes place as Cowley, Masterson, and assorted other bods greet the newly arrived Kamal Khadi, he who has been the cause of all this fuss.
Crableigh Hotel. Doyle skulks around in the bushes with a pair of binoculars, looking mighty fine.
Luis Delgado puts in an appearance, wandering casually through the same bushes with a bag slung over his shoulder.
A random agent – Wilson, perhaps – watches as a car pulls up, presumably containing a fake VIP, and calls Doyle on the R/T to let him know the decoy has arrived. Doud escorts the fake Khadi into Crableigh Hotel, accompanied by an assortment of his men standing guard. Inside, Doud radios Doyle, shaking his head, to note that the insurgents don't seem to have believed Frances.
"Oh yes they did," murmurs Doyle, watching Luis go by.
Luis makes his way through the bushes till he finds a suitable spot to set up. Doyle follows, much more stealthily than Bodie did earlier, and soon has the man at gunpoint.
Random Road. A couple of cars travel in formation from the airfield to the official rendezvous.
Crableigh Hotel. Doyle searches Luis's bag, surrounded by fellow agents, and Doud, in case Luis tries to escape, and finds no lethal weapons therein, only cameras. He checks the man's ID. "Simon Jacob Bloom – cultural attaché, embassy of Israel."
"I have diplomatic immunity, you can't touch me," says Simon née Luis, smugly.
Angry, Doyle shoves him over to Possibly Wilson to be taken back to base, orders Doud to keep his men away from him, and hurries back to his car to get on the radio to Bodie, quick smart.
Doyle: "Something's wrong."
Bodie: "Like what?"
Doyle: "I dunno, I'm coming to join you."
En Route to the Official Rendezvous. Bodie continues to follow Cowley's car. Doyle speeds to catch them up, all the while talking to Bodie, wondering who knows about the location apart from them. The list is very short, with no one standing out as a possible suspect.
Driving along a woodland road, the two leads cars pass a jeep, parked just off the road, a woman standing beside it with her back to them, distinguished only by the patches on the backside of her jeans.
Bodie glances at the jeep and the woman as he drives past…and then recognition dawns. He starts hammering on the horn in warning. At the wheel of the car in front, Khadi's PA, Hassam Alousha, panics and jumps out of the moving vehicle. Cowley quickly grabs the wheel to prevent an accident, while in the back, Masterson and Khadi react with shock. Cowley yells at them to get down, as more insurgents appear with rocket launchers to start firing at the car. Their first shot misses, and then Bodie screeches his Capri into their line of fire to prevent another attempt. They start running, firing rifles madly as they go. Bodie and the other agents with him follow on foot. It's all very action-packed.
The would-be terrorists try to make a getaway, but Bodie and his fellow agents stand their ground and keep firing, bringing the damaged jeep to a halt.
Doyle arrives just as the shooting ends, and leaps out of his car and over to the jeep to apprehend whoever is still alive…and is rather taken aback to find Shelley at the wheel.
Shelley: "Some student."
Doyle: "Yeah."
Bodie and co have apprehended the others, meanwhile. Doyle brings Shelley over to join them. She is defiant and unrepentant.
Shelley: "I guess you're not one of those cops who directs traffic to Trafalgar Square."
Bodie: "I guess not."
Shelley: "The water heater was good."
Doyle: "Yeah, so was the cabin service."
Shelley is led away, leaving two rather disgruntled agents in her wake.
Bodie: "Never mind, mate, she fooled me, too."
Doyle: "Yeah, course she did."
And, despite the successful resolution of the case, the episode ends on that rather downbeat note, which is rather fitting, really. For despite the episode being very amusing, with lots of delightful banter, the subject matter revolves around how distasteful espionage work can often be, with lots of grey areas and blurring of the boundaries between what's acceptable and what's not. Nicely done, and an enjoyable episode to kick off the third season.
The episode opens on a scene of furtive shadiness, with a bunch of shifty looking security agents of indeterminate origin setting themselves up on rooftops with surveillance equipment and rifles and whatnot, communicating via hand held radios. Meanwhile, a young woman wanders along nearby with a camera cunningly not well concealed in her handbag, filming their activities. As a car arrives, drives into a garage, and is concealed, whereupon one of the agents belatedly spots the woman and calls out to her, hastily giving chase when she immediately legs it at speed.
The pursuer chases the woman into a subway beneath a busy road, whereupon she whips out a gun and fires at him. He evades the shot, yells at her to stop or he'll fire, and when she continues to try to escape, shoots her dead before quickly claiming the custody of the camera that cost her life.
Titles.
Dead Girl's wobbly final footage plays out amid sombre silence. Silence, that is, until Cowley starts weighing in with a commentary, picking out Pursuer as the camera sweeps past him and identifying him as the detective Dead Girl pulled the gun on, who subsequently pulled his own gun on her and proved to have a much better aim. He explains it rather more concisely than that, though. He also explains that there was no one important in the car.
Cowley: "It was a dummy run."
Doyle: "Where've we heard that one before?"
Ooh, nice, nice little reference back to Blind Run there.
It was a security rehearsal, Cowley continues undeterred, ignoring this flippancy, for the arrival of one Kamal Khadi, a leading Palestinian. Khadi is due to arrive the following Thursday for secret talks with the Foreign Office, at the venue that has proved so spectacularly to be no longer secure. Cowley shows the Lads a picture of Khadi with his head of security, Aziz Doud, who is fanatically protective of his leader and was reluctant for Khadi to visit Britain even before this happened. Therefore, the location was being kept super top-secret, and even Doud wasn't to know of it until hours before the meeting took place.
Bodie: "Do you feel a drip?"
Doyle: "Think he means a leak."
Cowley continues to ignore the banter as he resolutely carries on with the exhaustive exposition, detailing the only two people in this country, outside of "our own security" who were privy to the location. The first was Colonel Roger Masterson MP, a personal friend of Khadi and instrumental in setting up the visit.
Doyle wonders who the other person was, and Cowley glares at him. "On your toes, man – the girl who took the film!" Hee.
Thinking about 'our own security' – there were a fair few agents involved in that, and they all knew the location, although whether they knew who it was for is another matter. You'd have to assume every office/agent involved in the preparations would have to be investigated, surely.
Anyway, Cowley now details Dead Girl, one Pilar Hernandez, who arrived in the country from Spain just a few days previously, supposedly as a student, fingerprints drawing a blank in several countries, and so on.
Whoa, info dump or what in this scene. No wonder the Laddish banter got tossed in to season the pot!
One piece of luck has emerged, Cowley goes on to explain – after circulating Pilar's picture in the local paper, a neighbour came forward to identify her, so they know where she was staying, which is under investigation now, of course.
Unless Khadi has second thoughts, the meeting is intended to go ahead as planned, with a new venue being chosen that even Cowley himself doesn't know yet. Special Branch have already replaced the entire security detachment with other men, none of whom will be told the identity of Khadi.
Cowley: "All we have to do now is find that leak and stop it. If we don't…"
Bodie: "Khadi gets wet."
Cowley: "We all do."
Block of flats, somewhere in London. A Nosy Neighbour stands around openly gawking as Bodie wanders up to the specific flat Pilar stayed at during her brief stay in the country, before her untimely demise at the hands – okay, gun – of Special Branch.
Inside, Bodie makes himself known to Pilar's American flatmate, Shelley Hunter, who groans in dismay. "Not another one – I already have him!" She gestures helplessly at the Random Agent currently rooting through her personal belongings with a deeply officious air. Bodie is a definite improvement.
Bodie: "He's Forensics – CID. I'm CI5."
Shelley: "What's the difference?"
Bodie: "Well, he's a technician, I'm an intellectual."
Shelley snickers just as openly as do fond viewers, and Bodie doesn't mind at all. He mildly broaches the subject of Shelley's deceased roommate, and her irritation comes flooding out.
Shelley: "It's unbelievable. I rent a room to this sweet little thing who looks like a nun, and then after I get back from a one-night stopover in Brussels, I find she's been killed in a shootout with the cops!"
Put like that, it does sound rather tiresome. Bodie casually helps himself to a guitar that's just lying around the place and sits himself down to have a quick strum while he continues the questioning. Bodie Babes start fanning themselves.
Shelley: "I thought British policemen didn't carry guns."
Bodie: "Well, the ones that direct traffic to Trafalgar Square don't."
On questioning, Shelley explains that she'd simply put an ad in the local paper for a flatmate, and Pilar was the best candidate who applied – "I had six others and they were all lunatics!" She belatedly thinks to ask if he drinks on duty, and he dutifully tells her he doesn't before going on to ask if she still has the paper with the ad in it. Very thorough. Shelley thinks it might not have been thrown away yet. On being asked if Pilar had said anything about herself, all she can come up with is "music student, I think."
Bodie smiles. "You didn't like her, did you?" Shelley shrugs that Pilar was nice enough. "You don't seem terribly upset," Bodie pushes.
Shelley coolly tells him that the life of an airhostess isn't so glamorous. "You have no roots, bob around the world, put on a big act for a million strangers, and smile till your face hurts. No, I'm hard to upset."
Bodie takes a moment to appreciate the view as she bends to dig out the newspaper with her flatmate advert – take note of those patches on the backside of her jeans. They will become important later. "There's your ad, Sherlock," says Shelley with a bright smile.
Sir Roger Masterson's Luxury Pad. The man himself offers thanks to Cowley for taking over security arrangements, expressing regret that the Foreign Office hadn't had him overseeing things from the start. He introduces Cowley to his assistant, Frances Cottingham, and admits that Khadi's people have been told about the incident, expressing unwillingness to undermine their relationship by keeping things from him. "He's putting his life in my hands."
"I'm the one who set up this meeting and I'm the only one they'll trust," he continues, adding that he'd given Khadi and Doud the details for the meeting in person, flew out there especially, rather than hold such a sensitive conversation over the phone, even with the scrambler in operation. Masterson had himself been given the location by Special Branch.
"Chief Inspector Smith," Frances helpfully supplies the name, bustling around the room making herself useful throughout the conversation, our first clue that Frances is privy to all this most sensitive of information, as well. This time, however, Masterson would prefer to hear it from Cowley, and Cowley rather grimly agrees. His grimness, one would guess, stems from the enormous headache this case has presented him with.
Shelley's Building. A decidedly dressed-down Doyle…nah, actually, that's pretty much how he usually dresses. Anyway, Doyle ascends the stairs, bag in one hand and an armful of books in the other. Undercover! I love it when they go undercover. Juggling books, bags and doorkey proves to be something of a challenge too far, and the noise he makes as he tries to get the door of one of the flats open, knocking things over and dropping all his books, quickly brings Nosy Neighbour out to see what's going on, broom in hand so she can give the appearance of business while she noses.
"I'm moving in," Doyle tells her, spinning a vague story about renting it from Terry, who normally lives there, via the Student's Union. Wonder how CI5 swung that – there's got to be a story of some kind there.
Nosy Neighbour: "You still at college, then?"
Doyle: "Yeah, still."
Nosy Neighbour: "Bit old to be a student, aren't you?"
Doyle: "Yeah, well I'm a post-graduate student."
Hee. Doyle as an English post-grad. Having established all that, Nosy Neighbour is quick to tell him about the girl living upstairs who got shot by the police. "I saw her picture on the television. I called the police, that's how they knew she lived here."
And through all this conversation, Doyle has been gathering up all the books he dropped, and is just so damn casual, completely embodying his undercover role, it's great fun to watch.
Having extricated himself from Nosy Neighbour, Doyle gets on the R/T to Bodie, who is sitting around in his car someplace.
Bodie: "You all right?"
Doyle: "Yeah, natives are a bit friendly."
Bodie: "Yeah, problem?"
Doyle: "No, I'll just take the rotor arm out of her broomstick. Listen, the guy who had the flat before me, what'd he do?"
Bodie: "Oh, he's a ballet dancer. Very nice."
Hee. And that was just such a pointless conversation – total fluff and filler. But so much fun, as so many R/T conversations are.
The Masterson Place. As they wander in from the garden and on through the house, in a very nicely shot scene, Cowley asks about Masterson's assistant, Frances Cottingham. Sir Roger exposits for us that she never married and lives with her invalid mother, devoted to her.
Cowley: "Very noble of her."
Masterson: "It's a waste of a damn good wife, if you ask me."
Eh, men.
Masterson continues to sing the praises of Frances, who has been with him for ten years, completely loyal. No boyfriends in that time, although not for want of trying on the part of Mrs Masterson, apparently. "The trouble is she doesn't ever meet anyone, except her damned mother."
As he sees Cowley to the door, Masterson continues that he has staked his political career on these talks with Khadi, not just his word with Khadi himself. So a successful outcome to this case – identifying the leak and ensuring the safety of all participants at the talks – is very important to him. And thus, by extension, very important to Cowley, too.
Hopping into his car, Cowley gets straight on the blower to Bodie, who is having a busy day on the R/T. Informing Bodie that he has an assignment for him, he takes time to check that Doyle has been installed in the flat successfully.
"How come the bionic golly gets all the best bits?" Bodie grumbles.
Shelley's Building. Shelley herself wanders downstairs, just as Doyle is lurking around on his new doorstep with a couple of empty milkbottles in hand.
"Hallo. I'm Ray Duncan…" Doyle begins, all affability.
"Course you are, sweetheart." Shelley blows him off completely as she sweeps past and continues on downstairs.
Doyle rolls his eyes at her departing back. "I'm your new neighbour."
With the coast so conveniently clear, he quickly scoots upstairs to Shelley's flat, expertly picks the lock – so much for the 'not a cat burglar' thing from Backtrack – and pokes around sabotaging the water heater.
Bodie's car. He's sitting around, still, on stakeout.
Doyle (on R/T): "Four-five to three-seven."
Bodie: "Come in, schoolboy."
Hehe.
Doyle: "Want to raise the bet?"
Bodie: "You've seen her."
Doyle: "Passed her on the stairs."
Bodie: "And she blanked you?"
Doyle: "Want to raise the bet?"
Tehehe. Betting on whether or not Doyle can bed the witness/suspect he's gone undercover to monitor, tut tut. They know each other so well. The R/T conversations in this episode are so much fun. Bodie agrees to raise the bet, but then puts the conversation on hold as his quarry emerges from the house opposite – it's Frances Cottingham. Every potential leak must be checked out, no matter how innocent or loyal they appear to be. Watching her get into her car, he starts the engine of his own, and quickly finishes the conversation just in time to follow her.
Doyle: "Horses for courses."
Bodie: "Yeah, well, don't get tangled in your mane. Out."
That's some good advice, there, if a little oblique – it's never a good idea to get emotionally entangled with the potential suspect you're keeping surveillance on. They both come up against that issue in this episode, in their differing ways, and both manage to maintain their professionalism regardless.
Later. Shelley arrives home and trots upstairs. Doyle quietly emerges from his flat to watch her go, looking satisfied.
Elsewhere. Looking rather harried, Frances parks her car and hurries up the steps toward what looks like a theatre building. Bodie pulls up nearby and follows, stopping to watch as she hangs around outside, waiting for someone. That someone quickly arrives – a tall, dark man considerably younger than she is, whom she greets with a passionate kiss. So much for the 'no boyfriends ever' thing. They head into the theatre together.
Flats. Doyle comes flying out of his flat at the sound of a loud bang from upstairs. Funny that – you'd almost think he was waiting for it….
He races upstairs, watched by a curious Nosy Neighbour, and bangs on the door. A very stressed Shelley lets him in, clad in a very short pink silk dressing gown, and wonders if he knows anything about water heaters, as hers just blew up. And, as we've so recently seen, our Ray does indeed know a thing or two about water heaters. He knows how to make them blow up, and he knows how to fix them again afterward. Quite the plumber, in fact.
Doyle: "Must have given you hell of a shock."
Shelley: "Maybe I hurt its feelings."
So then, just as planned, the ice is broken. Seems a rather extreme way to get the girl's attention, but he's on a deadline, I suppose.
Shelley: "By the way, I'm Shelley."
Doyle: "Course you are."
Shelley: "You got me."
She's an interesting character is Shelley. Because…she's so good at keeping a game face on, playing a part, but her fling with Doyle is something she does just for herself, because she actually likes him. Or fancies a fling, or whatever. There's no hidden agenda to her relationship with him, not on her side, anyway. She doesn't know who he is – just some guy who moved into her building. But he knows that she's a potential suspect that he needs to get close to in order to learn more about her for the sake of the case. So the act he puts on for her is for her benefit completely. The act she puts on for him is an act that she plays for everyone around her, every day.
Now that they are talking, they keep talking, and in no time at all Doyle has persuaded Shelley to let him cook dinner for her. Working fast there, boy.
Theatre. Bodie is hanging around outside waiting for Frances and her toyboy to come back out. He gets on the R/T to inform Cowley of this development.
Cowley: "You're sure it's a boyfriend, there's a big difference."
Bodie: "I know, I think I can remember."
Heh.
Bodie: "Anyway, in this case there's another difference. Twenty years."
Atypical behaviour at such a crucial time – that's enough to have Frances Cottingham put under full and total surveillance, Cowley promising Bodie some backup as soon as it can be arranged.
Elsewhere. Cowley parks his car and continues on foot. Behind him, a couple of Middle Eastern men likewise hop out of their car and follow him. Turns out, this is Aziz Doud and Khadi's Personal Assistant, Hassan Alousha, ahead of schedule. Cowley disapproves of this early arrival. Doud informs him that the dead girl has been identified as a member of the Palestinian Marxist Alliance.
Cowley sounds even more disapproving as he says that the politics are irrelevant – he's more interested in knowing why these men have come over when he gave express orders that they were not to do so until he'd cleared it.
Alousha: "They are not politicians, they are a guerrilla army!"
I'm…really not going to get into the semantics of the very fine dividing line between recognised political groups and terrorist organisations. Suffice it to say that this issue is as relevant today as it was back then.
Doud and Alousha anxiously continue that this group have enormous resources, and that Khadi will be in enormous danger if he comes to England now. Cowley, stonefaced, insists that he will be in good hands. "I will personally guarantee his safety."
Them's some high stakes the Cow is playing for here.
Doud isn't willing to take Cowley's word for it, huffily informing the CI5 Controller that under the circumstances they will have to take their own measures. Cowley does not look happy.
Doud: "They will be efficient, Mr Cowley."
Cowley: "Whatever they are, they'd better not interfere with mine."
The Arabs wonder what Cowley is going to do, exactly, but he refuses to be drawn. That's his business. He stalks away back to his car, fuming icily.
Doyle's New Flat. Doyle potters around all domestic like, whistling a jaunty tune as he sets a little flower in a makeshift vase on the table, really pushing the boat out, student-style. He's distracted from his dinner-date preparations by the insistent buzzing of the R/T, so stops to take the call. It's Bodie, of course.
Bodie: "What's happening?"
Doyle: "Is this an emergency call?"
Bodie (smirking): "Well, not unless you're out your depth."
Doyle: "Yeah, well I'll wave if I start drowning."
Bodie: "Oh yeah. Well, I'll buy you a wreath with all that money you're gonna owe me."
Heh. Shelley's arrival forestalls any more idle chit-chat, and Doyle hastily stows the R/T so he can go let her in, and whip the takeaway out of the oven.
Doyle: "Water heaters I can manage. Biryani I have to sub-contract."
Theatre. Bodie continues to kick his heels outside, bored rigid, not even able to while away a bit of time bantering with Doyle by radio, what with his partner having pulled a much plumber assignment on this one and being otherwise occupied. Bodie has never been fond of stakeouts, we remember.
Doyle's Flat. Over dinner, Doyle has got Shelley onto the subject of her recently deceased flatmate, and she chatters readily enough about how they were only in the flat together for one night, that she'd seemed okay, said she was homesick, talked about her parents and kid brother. It all sounds harmless enough, but what Doyle has to determine is if that was the cover story Pilar used to dupe her innocent flatmate, or if they were in it together and this now is the cover story Shelley is using to convince the world of her own innocence.
Theatre. Frances leaves alone, before the concert's finished. Bodie gets straight on the R/T to inform Cowley. Then he scoots on over to the theatre to see where lover boy has got to.
Doyle's Flat. Shelley is now questioning Doyle about his poetry studies. "Should find my name pretty romantic," she flirts, which almost blows his cover, as he doesn't have the faintest idea what she's talking about.
Doyle: "Hunter?"
Shelley: "Shelley. He was a romantic poet, wasn't he?"
Well, yeah, and a post-graduate English student should know that. Doyle quickly digs himself back out of the hole with an awful Frankenstein impression and by knowing that Shelley's wife wrote the book, which has Shelley completely confused. "Well, they were living in sin, anyway," he amends. Heh. The two of them are talking at complete cross-purposes throughout this scene, neither having the faintest idea what the other is on about, but it does prove that Doyle knows a thing or two about English literature after all!
Theatre. Bodie comes sprinting back out again so as not to lose the trail of Frances. She gets back into her car and drives away; Bodie pursues, all disgruntled about the non-appearance of those reinforcements Cowley promised him.
Doyle's Flat. Doyle and Shelley share a giggle while washing the dishes, getting along like a house on fire.
Shelley: "It's been a good evening, Ray."
Doyle: "Why's it have to end now?"
Shelley: "I'm flying at six."
Doyle: "Doesn't it make your arms ache?"
He wraps an arm around her from behind and starts kissing her neck. Fangirls go all gooey and wish they were Shelley. Shelley seems to enjoy it, too.
Streets of London. Frances drives. Bodie pursues, but not all that stealthily, it has to be said. Good thing she hasn't been trained to spot a tail. She pulls up outside her house and heads on in, so Bodie radios into base that she's home and to send in a night man.
Doyle's Flat. Doyle and Shelley are snuggled up in bed together, nice and cosy for a first date. I believe this is what they call 'mixing business with pleasure'. Shelley is fast asleep, Doyle not so much, as a noise upstairs in Shelley's flat draws his attention. He wakes her with a gentle shake, and whispers: "Have you got a very large cat up there?"
Shelley isn't awake enough to have any idea what he's talking about, but another bang on the floor of her apartment does the job of industrial strength coffee, and then she's wide awake.
Doyle leaps out of bed and pulls his jeans on, and this is the slo-mo moment to end all slo-mo moments, one to replay over and over again, just for that split second flash of bare backside we are treated to….
We almost catch a glimpse of Shelley's equally bare backside as she dives after him, blanket wrapped around herself, trying to stop him from going up there. To no avail, though, as he is off.
Up in Shelley's flat, a couple of rather inept burglars are ransacking the joint, apparently none too concerned about being seen and identified, as they aren't wearing masks, although they do have gloves on.
Pulling his leather jacket on over a bare chest, Doyle cautiously makes his way upstairs. He reaches the door just as the burglars are on their way out, and fighting ensues. BIFF! POW! THWACK!
One of the burglars then pulls out a gun, which alters the odds slightly, but Shelley's arrival diverts his attention enough for Doyle to kick his gun hand aside. Doyle then grabs Shelley and hauls her into the nearest room for cover. Recovering, the burglar fires a couple of warning shots, and then the two of them make a speedy exit, out of the kitchen window.
Doyle gives chase, much to Shelley's dismay. The burglars clamber over rooftops and verandas. Doyle does likewise, trailing doggedly in their wake. The burglars drop onto a handy scaffolding nearby. Doyle pursues. The unarmed burglar makes it down to the ground and away, but Doyle manages to tackle the gunman, and more fighting ensues. A nasty blow to the stomach causes Doyle to lose his man briefly, but fortunately the man himself seems to have lost his gun, as he is no longer making any attempt to use it. He runs again. Doyle chases him again. There is more fighting, and Doyle hits the deck. The burglar goes to smash him in the face with a brick, but Doyle kicks out, hard, and the man goes flying off the scaffolding and down to the ground below. "Arrrrrrgh!" Splat!
Shelley's Flat. Doyle clambers back in through the kitchen window and gives a very shaky Shelley a big hug. "Until you waved I thought you'd fallen," Shelley reproachfully tells Doyle. They each reassure the other that they are okay, and then Shelley wonders about the other burglar, whether or not he'll come back. Doyle doesn't know, but he does know that he could use a drink after all that exertion so early in the morning.
"What are you majoring in? Counter-insurgency?" Shelley wonders. Because have-a-go heroing by English post-grad students really isn't something that anyone ought to encourage, of course.
"I used to be a Marine," Doyle casually tells her, and he makes it sound so natural and plausible, as well, the lies just rolling off his tongue the whole time they are together.
"I bet they were sorry when you left," she snorts, pouring him a quick snifter.
Doyle asks if 'that girl' left anything, but Shelley shakes her head that the police took it all. Drink downed, Doyle heads for the phone and starts dialling for an ambulance. "That guy might still be alive, you know."
Hospital. Doyle drives up and parks outside. Inside, Cowley stands frowning at the bedside of the gunman, whose head is so heavily bandaged he's practically mummified. Doyle arrives, and Cowley quietly asks where Shelley is now.
"Left the country. Zurich. Oh don't worry, Wilson's on the plane with her," Doyle reports. She did say she had a flight at six, we remember. Probably just as well she had those burglars to act as an alarm clock, really.
Elsewhere. Bodie is having a ride in a lift. Reaching his destination, he knocks on the door of someone's flat, and a small dog starts yapping furiously on the other side. This is the home of Frances Cottingham and her invalid mother, who opens the door with great suspicion to be greeted by Bodie's most dazzling smirk. "Electricity – I've come to read the meter."
Mrs Cottingham lets him in, her yappy little dogs yapping madly the whole time, and directs him to the meter box. She really should've asked to see some ID first. Smiling and nodding still, Bodie makes a great show of taking the details down – oh, and I like that he puts a newspaper on the chair he stands on, to avoid footprints on her furniture. Nice touch.
"Right, I'll just check the appliances now," he breezes, exuding confidence and swagger of the kind that helps conmen and undercover agents get away with just about anything. Mrs Cottingham suspiciously remarks that they've never done that before, and he reassuringly assures her that they are always trying to improve their service.
Hospital. Doyle sits at the Mummified Gunman's bedside with a cup of tea, regarding the man thoughtfully. Cowley wanders back in again to see how he's doing. "No change," is the answer. Doyle asks about the gun, only to learn that the serial number was filed off. Cowley hands him a newspaper. 'Gunman falls from roof' reads the front-page headline.
Doyle: "Think that'll do it?"
Cowley: "We don't want to make it too obvious."
I really like the way Doyle and Cowley interact in this scene, less like boss and underling and more like colleagues, equals.
Cottingham residence. The phone rings, and Mrs Cottingham answers. It's Frances, and Mrs Cottingham speaks rather peevishly to her, already uncomfortable with Bodie's presence, and unhappy about having her attention taken away from this intruder in her home. Rightly so, as the call proves rather convenient for Bodie, and he promptly takes the opportunity to sidle into another room while her back is turned. Mrs Cottingham is after him in a flash, preventing him from placing a bug under her phone, and he quickly breezes his way back out of the flat again. "Thank you, madam, there'll be no charge."
I like the way Mrs Cottingham is with Bodie in this scene, because it's so real. She's a spoilt and peevish old lady, sure, but she's also extremely vulnerable, so her suspicion of the interloper is not only understandable but commendable. She still loses points for not asking to see his ID, though.
Hospital. Doyle is still hanging around watching over the Mummified Gunman. Bored, he wanders out of the room and strikes up conversation with a random man hanging around in the lobby outside, presumably a fellow agent, showing him the newspaper report of the incident.
Van. Cowley and Bodie don headphones to listen in on the bugs Bodie did manage to plant in the Cottingham residence. Bodie calls HQ to get a trace on a phone number, while Cowley concentrates on the conversation Frances is having with her boyfriend, arranging to meet again. I like the way the sound of both overlap – hard to make out what's being said, but giving a real feel of immediacy to the scene. As Bodie finishes his call, Cowley chuckles as Frances tells her boyfriend about the man who came to see her mother that day. "A really nasty piece of work, she says." Bodie grins, also amused by the description.
HQ call back almost at once to inform Bodie that the number was traced to a public phone box.
Bodie: "Shall we bring her in, sir?"
Cowley: "After I've spoken to Masterson."
That little 'sir' that Bodie throws in so casually there contrasts nicely with the informality of Doyle's interaction with Cowley earlier. The partners are so very different in their outlook and attitude, Bodie's ex-soldier discipline versus Doyle's hail-fellow-well-met approach, and they each have such different relationships with Cowley.
Hospital. A couple of men dressed as hospital porters wheel a trolley toward Mummified Gunman's room, but are thwarted by Doyle, who appears at just the wrong moment, from their point of view, and recognises Aziz Doud. "What are you doing?" he wonders. They shove the trolley at him and run for it. Doyle gives chase, as does that nameless fellow agent he was talking to earlier. After a lot of running around, Doud is apprehended.
You've got to love how Doyle manages to look so professional, competent and dangerous a gunman while so very scruffily dressed.
Cottingham residence. The dogs yap madly at a knock on the door. Pulling on a dressing gown, Frances goes to see who it is, looking worried. As well she might. It's Cowley and Bodie.
"Mr Cowley, it's five-thirty in the morning," she protests.
"Having been up all night I'm only too aware of the time," Cowley gently tells her.
Frances wonders if it can't wait till later, but Cowley, still very gently, insists that it can't. She relents, removes the chain, and lets them in.
From her bedroom, Mrs Cottingham peevishly calls to ask what's going on. Frances is irritated that her mother has been woken, hurriedly reassures her that there's nothing wrong, and then rejoins her unwelcome visitors.
"I'd like you to listen to something," says Cowley, gesturing to Bodie, who moves to play a tape recording for her.
The recording is of Frances' conversation with boyfriend Luis earlier. She asks to see him that night; he evades and tells her he can't. She whispers that she thinks they are being watched. "A man from the electricity board. Mother thinks he was snooping. A nasty piece of work she says."
Mother has pretty good instincts, really. He was snooping.
Frances looks mortified as the recording plays, like her whole world is crumbling around her. Cowley wonders what she's got to say for herself.
"You're utterly and completely wrong," Frances insists. "But I can see how it sounds from your point of view."
"Perhaps you would enlighten us," Cowley suggests. "Who is this 'Luis'?"
"A man I know," says Frances, which is nice and vague, and then at further prompting admits that they are having an affair.
Bodie asks if Luis is the man she met yesterday evening, and Frances looks a little startled that anyone knows about that, that she was followed so closely, but admits that yes, he is. Luis Delgado is his name, a Spanish post-graduate student at the Royal Academy of Music.
Pilar Hernandez was also supposed to be a music student, we remember.
Cowley asks why they were both so worried about being watched. Frances looks very sheepish as she explains that Luis has a very jealous wife. Cowley wonders how he supports this wife, and Frances defensively says that he doesn't, she has money of her own.
Bodie: "So he lives off her, does he?"
Frances: "He has very little money."
She hasn't met his wife, she tells them on further questioning, and has known Luis for about a year. The questions come thick and fast now – has she ever seen the wife, do they have children, do they live together, where do they live? Frances grows increasingly flustered as she tries to answer this barrage of questions, but maintains her dignity as she gives the address.
Bodie: "He's never shown you a photograph of his wife? Why not?"
Frances: "Because I wouldn't want to see a photograph of his wife."
Cowley tells her they are going to have to go into this a little more thoroughly, and he's sounding a little less gentle now. Frances is appalled and distressed, and Bodie uncomfortable.
Hospital. A random female agent drives Cowley there. He exits the car, and heads inside, where he finds Doyle and Doud lurking in the room of the Mummified Gunman, who is having his drip and whatnot removed by a nurse, indicating that he has finally got around to succumbing to his injuries.
"He died a few minutes ago." Doyle confirms this diagnosis, just as the nurse folds the sheet back to cover the face of the dead man, who shall remain unidentified.
"What about the other one?" Cowley wants to know.
"He got away," says Doyle. I thought Cowley already knew that. Unless he means Doud's associate? It isn't all that clear.
"His maker silenced him before you could," Cowley snips at Doud regarding the dead man.
"Kamal Khadi's visit is out of the question now," is all Doud has got to say for himself. Nothing if not single minded.
"Your guerrilla army charging about London is out of the question," Cowley fiercely retorts.
Doud reminds him that he prefers to work independently. "Particularly as your security is leaking so badly."
"There is no such thing as watertight security and you know that as well as I do!" Cowley snaps. He's really rattled by all this, the pressure weighing down on him.
And through all this ping-pong bickerfest of a power-struggle, Doyle has been lounging attractively against the wall in the background, jacket slung over his shoulder, thumb hooked in his belt, quietly observing and staying well out of it.
Calming down, Cowley adds that they seem to have found the weak link in this particular chain, and that perhaps Doud had better meet her. I like that although Cowley finds Doud's methods and interference annoying, he doesn't question the man's right to do so, in the circumstances, and is completely willing to work with him.
Outside the Masterson residence. Bodie is sitting in his car outside when two other cars pull up. Cowley seems to have lost his random female driver somewhere along the line, as he is now driving himself, with Doud as passenger. The other car contains Doud's colleague, Alousha, and the two of them quickly confer in Arabic as they head inside.
Inside the Masterson residence. Frances, scared and defensive, is interrogated regarding her relationship with Luis Delgado, specifically what she may or may not have told him about her work with Colonel Masterson. Frances insists that she has never talked to Luis about Kamal Khadi or the proposed visit. With Cowley, Masterson, Doud, and Alousha all asking questions, with varying degrees of sharpness and/or gentle encouragement, and Bodie lurking in the background, the pressure on her is enormous, and she finally cracks under the strain, ashamed of herself, and starts to talk.
Luis, says Frances, was ashamed of living off his wife and desperate to get away, but couldn't get a work permit to work in this country and so started writing articles for a Spanish magazine. "He needed one good scoop, to establish himself as a journalist."
And so she told him about the meeting, and hangs her head in shame as she admits it. Cowley looks to Bodie to shatter her illusions, and Bodie very quietly obliges – there is no Luis Delgado living at the address she has for him. "Neither does any young musician, Spanish or otherwise, with or without a rich wife." Luis Delgado has likewise never been enrolled as a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Music, or the Madrid Conservatoire.
And you can see Frances's heart breaking, right there on screen, as the enormity of it sinks in.
Later. Bodie brings Frances a cup of tea. Because he's just a big softy, really, and clearly feels a lot of sympathy for her. It's nice to see Bodie in this light, as he's usually portrayed as being less compassionate. Frances sits with her head in her hands, a broken woman.
Outside, Cowley confers with Doud. Looking as light-hearted as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders, Cowley is satisfied that, now that the leak has been identified and plugged, the rendezvous can be altered and Khadi's visit go ahead as planned. Doud dourly agrees. Cowley continues that he has already spoken to the Foreign Office, and a large country house has been made available. That's just a bit more up-market than that nondescript location we saw in the teaser.
"The meeting will take place under my personal supervision." Cowley's got a twinkle in his eye now – a hunter with his target almost in his sights. "If they still trust Luis Delgado," he enthusiastically plots. "We might be able to kill two birds with one stone."
Doud instantly realises where he's going with this and flatly tells him that they can't rely on Frances. He's seen just how broken she is.
"What've we got to lose?" Cowley smiles. He does love cooking up a good scheme. "The opposition are on a hiding to nothing."
Episode title – drink! Doud is completely blank, the expression meaning nothing to him.
"If Miss Cottingham is believed, the terrorists will come to where they can be dealt with," Cowley explains. "If she is not believed, then they still won't know where Khadi is going, and can do nothing."
Masterson joins them at this point, and protests that they can't use Frances like that. He obviously doesn't know Cowley as well as we do, because we've seen before, many times, that the Cow can be extraordinarily ruthless when he feels he has to be to get the job done. And he's playing for extremely high stakes here. "If the Khadi visit is as vital to British interests as you claim, Colonel, I don't think this is a chance we can afford to miss."
Outside. Bodie stalks back to his car, looking sullen and discontented, to call Doyle on the R/T. "What's keeping you?" he wants to know.
In his Undercover Flat, Doyle is packing. He promptly rattles off a stream of French that leaves Bodie completely nonplussed. "To leave is to die a little," he merrily translates for the sake of his bemused partner.
"Yeah, I know, but if you've fallen in love the bet reverts to me." Bodie gets his priorities straight. He might not be enjoying his end of the job, but that doesn't mean he's going to give Doyle any leeway regarding his – all the more reason not to, in fact.
Doyle laughs. "Bitter, eh?"
Bodie denies it. "Wilson's just called in from Heathrow, and Miss Jetstream's back in town," he teasingly suaves. The R/T banter really is the best part of this episode. "Clean as a whistle," he adds, going on to impart all the juicy details about Shelley's nocturnal exploits with the captain of the plane, as relayed by Wilson, who seems to have had a busy night keeping track of her.
"Gosh, thanks, Bodie," is all Doyle has got to say.
Flats. Doyle loads up his car with all the random clutter he moved in to make his residence there look convincing. He gets into the car just as another one pulls up opposite, and adjusts his mirror to watch Shelley being dropped off by a Middle-Eastern-looking man and sharing an affectionate goodbye kiss with him. He rolls his eyes with a sigh at this evidence of just how much of a casual fling he was for her, and drives away, rather than instantly thinking 'hmm, Arab – suspicious!" After all, Shelley is no longer a suspect, with Frances identified as the weakest link.
Inside the Flats, Shelley knocks on Doyle's door before she's even taken her bag up to her room. Female version of the sailor who likes to have a girl in every port, clearly.
"He's gone," Nosy Neighbour tells her, enjoying the juiciness of the gossip she's had to pass on just lately. "Gone for good, just took his bags and left."
Shelley looks a little disappointed as she heads upstairs to her own flat.
Masterson residence. "Mr Cowley, I feel very ashamed," says a drained Frances, gathering all her wits and courage. "I've obviously been very foolish. But what can I do? I've told you where I arranged to meet the man I knew as Luis. But as to his true identity and who he's working for…you'll have to ask him yourselves. I don't know."
Cowley nods, and then lays it on the line for her. If they apprehend Luis now, they may never find out who he is working for. If she doesn't meet him as planned, he'll become suspicious. Clueless, Frances offers to cancel the meeting. Masterson leans toward her, all paternal and reassuring as he tells her that they don't want her to cancel the meeting. Startled and wary, Frances wonders what they do want.
"Luis will want to know where the talks with Khadi are going to take place," Cowley tells her, taking a card out of his wallet. "This is the address you're to give him."
Frances looks shaken to her core as she takes the card, realising what they are asking – telling – her to do.
Hotel. Bodie drives Frances to her meeting with Luis. "You'll be all right," he tries to reassure her, although it comes out rather brusque, this not really being his forte. Without replying, or acknowledging him in any way, Frances gets out of the car, face set like stone.
Frances heads into the hotel, and Bodie drives off to park up opposite. Another car pulls up nearby, and a random agent scurries over to hand Bodie a briefcase containing the radio equipment he's going to need to monitor Frances's meeting with Luis. As he gets set up, Cowley is dropped off by one of his random drivers and comes to join him. Bodie moves the briefcase just in time, as his boss gets in without first checking to see that the passenger seat is empty.
"Where's Doyle?" Cowley asks by way of greeting.
"Air sickness," Bodie tells him, without much enthusiasm. "Never was a good traveller."
Cowley ignores this flippancy and skips ahead to the issuing of orders. After 'this', Bodie is to trail Luis, while Doyle looks after Frances. "Oh, they can form a broken hearts club," Bodie sarcastically remarks, trying to cover that he's feeling sorry for the position Frances is in, and the way she is being used.
"You're a hard man, Bodie," Cowley tells him, evidently not having picked up on Bodie's distaste for this particular operation.
"Who'd you think you recruited, a cream puff?" says Bodie, defending his image.
Hotel: inside. A nervous Frances goes into her room and waits for Luis.
Hotel: outside. Bodie and Cowley watch as Luis arrives. Cowley tells Bodie that if Doyle isn't there in time, he's to get 'Victor' to keep an eye on Frances. Just who this Victor is and where Bodie is supposed to conjure him from is not explained. Presumably he's another random agent and is skulking about someplace nearby, unseen. Cowley gets out of the car, leaving Bodie alone with this less than pleasant assignment.
Hotel: inside. Frances sits on the bed, the picture of desolation. Luis arrives and is all smarmy and lovey-dovey. Frances just about manages to lose the dejected expression as she rises to kiss him. The look is soon back, but Luis fails to notice.
Hotel: outside. Bodie sits monitoring the bug Frances is presumably carrying someplace about her person. Doyle finally arrives. He greets his partner affably enough; Bodie is monosyllabic in response.
Doyle: "How's it going?"
Bodie: "The unacceptable face of espionage. It stinks."
Doyle nods his wordless agreement, and asks if she's told him yet.
Bodie: "No. Would you?"
Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage: inside. Frances and Luis lie in bed, post-coital. Luis is all snugly and manipulatively affectionate, while Frances lies staring off into space, facing away from him so he won't see her distress. Selling her body for the sake of her country, in penance for her weakness in falling for this man who paid her such flattering attention, after lonely years of devoted service to an invalid mother and high-powered employer. Luis is quickly onto the subject of his 'editor' in Madrid, and the money he has been offered, if only he can come up with a scoop.
"You know how much it means to me, to us," he implores. Outside in the car, Bodie and Doyle listen, grim faced. Bodie in particular looks like he's sucking on a lemon as Luis wheedles for Frances to give him the new location of the Khadi talks. "With the money we could become free," he tempts her.
Still staring desolately away into space, Frances asks him to tell her about his wife.
Outside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Doyle winces. "She's gonna blow it," he fears, while Bodie just shakes his head in mute disapproval of this entire scheme.
Luis wonders why Frances would ask about his wife; she points out that she doesn't know anything about her. And while she tries to get him to talk to her about the supposed other woman in her life, out in the car, Doyle pessimistically believes it's all over, while Bodie has rather more faith in Frances's ability to pull it off.
Doyle: "Double or quits?"
Bodie (grim): "Done."
Inside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Frances wonders in a very quiet voice if Luis's wife is beautiful. Luis's frustration with this line of questioning knows no bounds, and is really well done, because it is so vague – his attitude fits the profile both of a conman using her for the information she can give him, or that of the cad cheating on his wife and not wanting to be so reminded of the fact. Giving in, he unwillingly sighs that, yes, his wife is beautiful, and he could not sound more bored of this topic of discussion if he tried. Frances presses for more specific details regarding the beauty of the supposed Mrs Delgado.
"You're just hurting yourself now, she means nothing to me," Luis protests as he reluctantly describes his wife in a few terse replies to Frances's insistent questioning. Frances takes a deep breath and tells him she doesn't want to hear any more about the other woman. And then she unhappily tells him to look in her bag for the card giving the name of the hotel where the meeting is to be held. Luis reaches for the card, and reads the name on it: Crableigh Hotel.
Outside the Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage, Doyle reaches for his wallet with a wry smile. Bodie morosely tells him to forget it.
Crableigh Hotel. Cowley and Doud check out the lie of the land, and seem satisfied with it as a suitable decoy for the apprehension of any unwanted visitors, should they put in an appearance. Cowley takes an R/T call from Bodie, who informs him that: "the fish has taken the bait." Cowley smiles and instructs him to carry on as arranged, before relaying the news to Doud.
Doud: "To take it is one thing, to swallow it quite another."
I find myself inclined to like this Doud fella. He's single-minded about his work, prepared to personally do whatever it takes to get the job done, and can also be pretty amusing at times.
Hotel of Unacceptable Espionage. Luis leaves, satisfied on all counts. "All right, Romeo," Bodie growls at him from a distance, before turning to Doyle. "Listen, go easy on her, she'll be in a bit of a state," he advises, and I like that he cares so much about the effect all this is having on Frances. Doyle nods his agreement, and then peels off in the direction of his own car.
Luis drives away, and Bodie follows, sitting right on his tail, which doesn't strike me as terribly stealthy. Sure enough, Luis spots him almost at once, and is annoyed.
Frances, meanwhile, exits the hotel on foot, lost in a world of her own misery. Doyle, skulking furtively around nearby, follows in his car.
Roads of London. Luis is alarmed by Bodie's presence, driving along right behind him, and pulls over, evidently as a test of his own paranoia as much as anything else. Bodie's car sails on past, and within it Bodie watches in his mirror as Luis does a u-turn to head off in the opposite direction. Bodie promptly wrenches his own wheel around to do likewise, which, again, loses him stealth points. I'm sure he could have been a lot more subtle than that if he'd really tried.
Streets of London. Frances wanders unhappily along, dazed and forlorn. Doyle is following in his car, but soon parks up to continue his pursuit on foot. I fail to see why he is following her so secretively – I mean, if she was taken to her rendezvous with Luis by CI5, surely she deserves to be given a lift home again afterward, rather than being discarded like a used tissue as soon as her usefulness has been exhausted. Unless she is still under suspicion for some reason, and they want to monitor her secretly to see what she does next? It doesn't seem likely.
Roads of London. Bodie continues to screech along, pursuing Luis about as conspicuously as he possibly can, not even attempting to be discreet. I thought the whole point of this little exercise was for Luis to pass his new information on without finding out the authorities were onto him. Or is this an attempt to convince him that his information is genuine? Anyway, Bodie finally gets around to radioing into base with a description of Luis's car and registration number.
Still very alarmed by the fact that Bodie is so very obviously following him, Luis takes evasive manoeuvres, speeding up to get ahead of a minivan and thus almost causing an accident. Being right behind him, Bodie is forced to screech to a halt to avoid this near accident, and so loses his prey. Cowley chooses that moment to call on the R/T.
Cowley: "Three-seven, where are you?"
Bodie: "I wish I knew."
Streets of London. Frances wanders along in a daze, while Doyle follows at a discreet distance. She's in such a daze that she steps right into the road without looking where she is going, and is hit by a random passing car. Dismayed, Doyle sprints over to see what the damage is, and instructs the shocked driver to call an ambulance.
Masterson residence. Masterson gets an update on Frances's condition, and informs the CI5 team that Frances is going to be all right – his wife is staying with her at the hospital and will let them know of any further developments. I like that Masterson and his wife are so fond of Frances, and remain so in spite of everything, that they are so forgiving. Not that that'll save her job, of course. Masterson is blaming himself for ever agreeing to let her do it. Cowley points out that she wanted to do it. "It was the only way she could make amends."
Masterson wanders off, and Cowley starts to make final arrangements with his top team, sending Bodie to the airfield three hours before Khadi and his people arrive to stake out the perimeter with a handful of other random agents. Doyle, meanwhile, is to keep an eye on Doud at the Crableigh Hotel to see that he doesn't go over the top. I'm amazed that Doud, being so paranoid about Khadi's safety, is overseeing the sting against the insurgents rather than supervising the arrival of Khadi himself. Cowley is satisfied that by the time the PMA realise Luis has given them false information it'll be too late for them to prevent Khadi's mission.
Airfield. All kinds of hustle and bustle takes place as Cowley, Masterson, and assorted other bods greet the newly arrived Kamal Khadi, he who has been the cause of all this fuss.
Crableigh Hotel. Doyle skulks around in the bushes with a pair of binoculars, looking mighty fine.
Luis Delgado puts in an appearance, wandering casually through the same bushes with a bag slung over his shoulder.
A random agent – Wilson, perhaps – watches as a car pulls up, presumably containing a fake VIP, and calls Doyle on the R/T to let him know the decoy has arrived. Doud escorts the fake Khadi into Crableigh Hotel, accompanied by an assortment of his men standing guard. Inside, Doud radios Doyle, shaking his head, to note that the insurgents don't seem to have believed Frances.
"Oh yes they did," murmurs Doyle, watching Luis go by.
Luis makes his way through the bushes till he finds a suitable spot to set up. Doyle follows, much more stealthily than Bodie did earlier, and soon has the man at gunpoint.
Random Road. A couple of cars travel in formation from the airfield to the official rendezvous.
Crableigh Hotel. Doyle searches Luis's bag, surrounded by fellow agents, and Doud, in case Luis tries to escape, and finds no lethal weapons therein, only cameras. He checks the man's ID. "Simon Jacob Bloom – cultural attaché, embassy of Israel."
"I have diplomatic immunity, you can't touch me," says Simon née Luis, smugly.
Angry, Doyle shoves him over to Possibly Wilson to be taken back to base, orders Doud to keep his men away from him, and hurries back to his car to get on the radio to Bodie, quick smart.
Doyle: "Something's wrong."
Bodie: "Like what?"
Doyle: "I dunno, I'm coming to join you."
En Route to the Official Rendezvous. Bodie continues to follow Cowley's car. Doyle speeds to catch them up, all the while talking to Bodie, wondering who knows about the location apart from them. The list is very short, with no one standing out as a possible suspect.
Driving along a woodland road, the two leads cars pass a jeep, parked just off the road, a woman standing beside it with her back to them, distinguished only by the patches on the backside of her jeans.
Bodie glances at the jeep and the woman as he drives past…and then recognition dawns. He starts hammering on the horn in warning. At the wheel of the car in front, Khadi's PA, Hassam Alousha, panics and jumps out of the moving vehicle. Cowley quickly grabs the wheel to prevent an accident, while in the back, Masterson and Khadi react with shock. Cowley yells at them to get down, as more insurgents appear with rocket launchers to start firing at the car. Their first shot misses, and then Bodie screeches his Capri into their line of fire to prevent another attempt. They start running, firing rifles madly as they go. Bodie and the other agents with him follow on foot. It's all very action-packed.
The would-be terrorists try to make a getaway, but Bodie and his fellow agents stand their ground and keep firing, bringing the damaged jeep to a halt.
Doyle arrives just as the shooting ends, and leaps out of his car and over to the jeep to apprehend whoever is still alive…and is rather taken aback to find Shelley at the wheel.
Shelley: "Some student."
Doyle: "Yeah."
Bodie and co have apprehended the others, meanwhile. Doyle brings Shelley over to join them. She is defiant and unrepentant.
Shelley: "I guess you're not one of those cops who directs traffic to Trafalgar Square."
Bodie: "I guess not."
Shelley: "The water heater was good."
Doyle: "Yeah, so was the cabin service."
Shelley is led away, leaving two rather disgruntled agents in her wake.
Bodie: "Never mind, mate, she fooled me, too."
Doyle: "Yeah, course she did."
And, despite the successful resolution of the case, the episode ends on that rather downbeat note, which is rather fitting, really. For despite the episode being very amusing, with lots of delightful banter, the subject matter revolves around how distasteful espionage work can often be, with lots of grey areas and blurring of the boundaries between what's acceptable and what's not. Nicely done, and an enjoyable episode to kick off the third season.
