Bergerac

- Season 9

(1991)

Jim has quit the force to live and work with Danielle at the vineyard. They attend a fashion show in Aix staged by her cousin Alain, after which one of Alain's best customers, Etienne, is shot dead and Alain is framed. His girlfriend Denise, who saw what happened, disappears. Her brother Gerard was once Alain's manager but was sacked for corruption and Alain's original backer, Leon, infatuated by Denise, wants all his money back. Most of Alain's associates seem to have something to hide. Whilst Alain was clearly not the murderer was Etienne the intended victim? Jim ...

When Jim returns to Jersey to give evidence in court, Charlie asks him to find Anne-Claire Leighton, French wife of a business associate, who has gone missing and whose signature is required for an important transaction for Charlie's syndicate. Jim discovers that she is having an affair with D.C. Lomas but Charlie works out that bank manager Wenslow could profit if the deal falls through and goes to Charlie's rivals, and that Anne-Claire could be colluding with him and using Lomas. Jim must therefore find the lady and save his ex-colleague's job, as well as dealing ...

Jim is conned by Charlie into house-sitting in Provence for the Calders whilst they are in Milan, a task which involves looking after the boisterous Clarissa and her sister and their rowdy friends. When a consignment of cocaine is found hidden in a well in the grounds, an undercover policeman tells Jim it is being used as a sting to trap Mafia man Bonetti who is coming to buy it. Jim poses as the dealer but is betrayed and has to rescue Danielle and Clarissa from the mob.

Now working as a private investigator, Jim is approached by petty thief Eddie Lyle who explains that he was hired by property developer Jacques LeRozier to burgle Harriet Mallin in the hopes of obtaining documents to force her to sell him her land. On entering her house he found her dead and believes he will be accused of her murder. Jim takes the case, stumbling upon a second corpse, and, helped by old colleague D.C. Pettit, uncovers a plot to discredit a dead war hero.

Charlie is suspicious when American businessman Karl Goldman asks him to invest seven million pounds in a deal that needs a swift closure. Then Goldman's daughter Giselle arrives and asks Jim to help abduct him and return him to Florida to stand trial for her mother's murder ten years earlier. Matters are complicated when it turns out that the police are surveying Goldman as a possible drug smuggler. Jim is reluctant to help in an illegal abduction and Giselle's persistence makes him wonder if she is all she claims to be.

Jim drives Charlie to the eightieth birthday party of his friend Constance Battiston. Family tensions and money problems are barely concealed, as is Constance's grand-daughter Camilla's secret meeting with young English boyfriend Jeff, when she is destined to be part of an arranged marriage. When Camilla is robbed of a family heirloom, a valuable diamond necklace, Jim is unconvinced by her account of events and is proved right, though Constance herself has the last word.

Solicitor Lesgate from the Economic Advisors' Office asks Jim to investigate a company's application for a Jersey trading licence but there is no evidence that the firm existed. Danielle becomes suspicious of Faraday, a friend of Charlie, who seems overly interested in Jim's activities, which is not surprising when Lesgate asks Jim to look into a second company, also owned by Faraday. The businesses are a front for something far more sinister and a man dies whilst gathering evidence for Jim. Faraday claims he is merely being used but can Jim believe him?

Jim travels to England in pursuit of Norman Atherton's wife Laura, who has joined a group run by her old flame George Bolingham. He believes in self-discovery by studying the lost city of Atlantis and organizes Atlantean weekends, for which Jim signs up. George appears to be a sincere man, certainly not a charlatan, but when an angry Norman arrives, threatening violence, it becomes clear that his hostility towards George dates back to the Second World War when they were soldiers together.

Jim is invited to a castle in Brittany by a man named Hapgood, who has survived an attempt to kill him. Jim discovers that Hapgood was formerly a professional assassin, who has now turned his back on the job and wants to go straight. However his ex-employers want his silence and have sent another assassin to kill him. Hapgood hopes to dissuade the man but Jim has his doubts as to whether he will succeed and the two men await the killer together.

Rosa Zeenak asks Jim to guard the Lohans, a set of porcelain figures she is putting up for sale, though there is a suspicion that they were stolen from the valuable Wiess collection in Switzerland. When a burglar takes the figures Rosa accuses prospective buyer John Kelp, but she has held back one of the figures as bargaining power and asks Jim to act as broker with Kelp. However, the death of an innocent antiques expert whose help Jim had sought leads him to suspect collusion between Zeenak and Kelp and he goes after them - and the reward offered for the collection's...

After receiving a letter from Danielle ending their relationship, Jim starts drinking again. To keep him out of trouble, Charlie takes him to Bath, where art dealer Rupert Draper will be buying a painting that Charlie was given as payment for a debt. Once in Bath, Jim falls for the charms of Rupert's faithless wife, unaware that she is using him to take the rap for a murder, back in Jersey, where a body is found in the burnt-out remains of Rupert's shop. Fortunately Deborah helps Jim to clear his name, after which Charlie recommends him to head a new crime unit on the...