Bergerac

- Season 7

(1989)

A dead sailor is found floating alongside a barrel of chemicals traced to a Spanish factory, though other barrels are missing from the cargo. The Moroccan shipping importer, who shares an office building with Susan, disappears - as do several English girls, all of whom were last seen with a man called Alex. Ambitious policewoman Maria Duvane defies Jim by acting as bait to catch Alex, who is also involved in the transportation of chemical waste.

Charlie calls Jim in after he receives sinister phone calls and a newspaper cutting implying he was responsible for an old woman's death. Jim suspects arsonist Jacky Cook, a girl in care, who is on holiday in Jersey with other London delinquents and their case worker Ruth Gardiner. Jacky is involved with a local boy whose father hates the incomers but why should she want to harass Charlie? Susan, meanwhile, helps Charlie to beat two American bunco artists at their own game.

Lady Trowbridge's diamonds are stolen following a visit from Rita Smith, her rival in the upcoming tango contest. Jim suspects her Ladyship's dance teacher Pepe Mendoza, especially when he turns out to be from Liverpool and not Spain. However it seems that the worlds of dance and Jersey society are equally as cut and thrust and some competitors will stop at nothing to be on top. Fortunately events lead to a real partnership.

After playwright Graham Hawkesworth has been found murdered, his widow Bonnie tells Jim she is certain he had a mistress, but no-one can identify the other woman. Jim learns that Bonnie was also unfaithful. Susan becomes a suspect through her acquaintance with the dead man and evidence starts to build against her. Convinced of her innocence Jim knows that either somebody is trying to frame her or that Graham had fantasized about her as his girl-friend. Whatever the motive she is in danger and Jim has to protect her.

Jim's weekend plans are spoilt when he is asked to look after a valuable hostage negotiator Anton Charet, though he is soon aware that his charge is a police decoy as the real Charet has been kidnapped in London. Jim travels to England and visits ex-wife Deborah, an old flame of the kidnapped man. Her subsequent information leads Jim into a hostage situation of his own ending in double-cross.

Sylvia Gildred is attacked and robbed but is unable to identify her attacker, the two suspects being scrap dealer Tom St. Clements and Toby Lemaire, student son of Charlie's wealthy lawyer friend Roger. Jim's dislike of Toby's privilege lays him open to accusations of bias against the boy, not helped when Roger asks Charlie to intervene. Fortunately for Jim Charlie's intervention saves him when he is confronted by the real mugger.

Former Olympic medallist Peter Jason is threatened, to prevent him exposing the use of steroids in sport and arrives in Jersey to hide out with his old flame Philippa Vale. Heavies follow to keep him quiet and accidentally abduct Susan, believing her to be Philippa, to divulge Peter's whereabouts. Jim and Philippa team up to rescue her, at the same time uncovering an illegal gambling ring.

Retired Chief Superintendant Trenchard arrives in Jersey, supposedly for the fishing. However he makes it his business to harass local philanthropist Olly Sutton, whom he is convinced was behind the robbery four years earlier which paralyzed a colleague and whom he goads into action. Having helped Trenchard secure justice, Jim, disillusioned after Crozier's promotion to the mainland and feeling his relationship with Susan is dead, borrows Charlie's boat to take a sabbatical year off.

David Mason murders Ted Grob by throwing him into a swimming pool, handcuffed to a patio recliner. Jim returns to duty to solve the murder and is asked by an ex-con who believes he was framed to go back over the details of the robbery of a courier company some years earlier which has a connection with the recent death.