Heartbeat

- Season 14

(2004)

Clive Formby's combine harvester has been torched and he is convinced Ken Dixon in Ashfordly is behind it. A witness saw a shady character staying at her empty neighbouring house overnight and wandering about with a fuel can. The "shady" character turns out to be the new police constable in Aidensfield after PC Crane's death. His name is Rob Walker and Oscar is not too happy about him. His father Jake was a well-known criminal and Blaketon is convinced that nothing good will ever come out of that family. Dr. Merrick is concerned about one of her patients, Gilbert ...

Somebody tries to break in at Jean and Derek Lester's cottage. Derek does not want to report it, because nothing was taken, but his wife is sure she heard voices. Dr. Merrick discovers that her patient William Seaton is being blackmailed. He has paid 300£ and left the money in a telephone box in Malthouse Street. He is not the only victim of the blackmailer. So is Barry Jones, who runs a refuge next door to the telephone box, and Mrs. Ventress' goddaughter Susan. The only common denominator to all three of them is Derek Lester who becomes the prime suspect, but he is ...

The panda car of the police gets stolen while being serviced by Bernie. Oscar Blaketon suspects Mr. Proctor, a guest at the Aidensfield Arms who knows nothing about the birds he claims to be studying. The car is later used at a number of burglaries where the burglar poses as a police officer. Petty stuff at first, but then both the car and its "owner" are connected with a serious break-in at a jeweller's shop. Vernon Scripps organizes an art course with the famous artist Lorenzo at Ashfordly Hall. Some of the participants are interested in other things than art. Like ...

Gina's friend Cathy Simpson is getting married. But her father cannot afford the wedding and goes to Don Megson for help. Megson promises to help him out in return for information about his workplace - information like entrances and exits, alarm systems and such. Simpson agrees, but does not intend to oblige. He tells Oscar Blaketon in case something should happen to him. This is very likely because Megson does not take kindly to being cheated. There is a wholesale clean-up in the lost and found at the police station, and items which have not been collected within ...

Mrs. Barton reports her husband Harry missing. He went out late at night to hunt a fox which has been after their pheasants and did not return. He is found dead, killed in an apparent accident, but foul play cannot be ruled out. Vernon Scripps risks losing his taxi license when David fails to pick up Mrs. Fforbes-Hepplethwaite, the chairman of the taxi licensing committee. Mrs. Fforbes-Hepplethwaite has set her heart on having the Aidensfield plough dance as the centrepiece of the village fête. However Oscar Blaketon has not been able to find any evidence that the ...

PC Walker is forced off the road by Keith Baldock, but loses him when a flock of sheep crosses the road. Baldock claims he did not see him, but he may have confused him with PC Bellamy, who helped put him in jail five years earlier. Phil Bellamy has found a new love interest, Emma Dryden, after his wedding to Gina fell through. When Phil is walking her home one night he is almost run down by a speeding car and Sergeant Merton has little doubt that Keith Baldock was behind the wheel. But when Emma's son Jack is kidnapped Baldock has a perfect alibi. He occupies a cell ...

Wing Commander Andy Carstairs likes to fly around in his beautifully restored Hawker Hurricane fighter from World War II. One night the airfield watchman is knocked down and two explosive wedges are stolen. A gang of robbers have been using that kind of explosives to break into security vans, but Sergeant Merton thinks it is a local job when another security van is robbed using one of the stolen wedges. David enters a yellow fuchsia on behalf of his Aunt Peggy's friend Mrs. Crompton in the Aidensfield Flower Show. She has had a fall out with the chairman of the flower...

David is helping out in the kitchen during a dinner at Redwood House when the whole party is held at gunpoint by three robbers and the jewels of Joan Maltravers are stolen. The robbers get away although David manages to free himself and the cook Mrs. Woolley and call the police, but their car crashes when the police give chase and they have to continue on foot. David becomes the celebrity of the day and his fame is not diminished when he and Rosie find the stolen gems in the wrecked car. The relationship between Liz Merrick and Ben Norton has improved a lot since ...

Don Tetley is looking for relics with a metal detector. He wants to search a building sit at the Ashfordly estate because there once was an old monastery, but is told to clear of by the contractor Bob Acott, but returns later during the night anyway. Tetley also gets a hard time from his wife and her lover. The next morning Tetley is found dead outside his cottage and most of his collection of findings has been stolen. Vernon Scripps gets a visit from his distant relative Gareth. He has a broken heart to mend, and by taking care of him Vernon hopes that there will be ...

A storm is blowing and Oscar Blaketon is on his way back from Whitby when he witnesses how a tree tips over and hits the another car. Blaketon quickly gets help, but it is too late for the driver Alan Buckland a former sergeant of the Whitby police. His passenger Heather Hamilton is much better off and it seems that the two of them were running away from his wife, who is also Heather's sister. Apart from passports and ferry tickets they also bring along a bag with a lot of money in it. The incident also makes Jenny fear for her own marriage to Sergeant Merton. During ...

The preparations for Liz Merrick's and Ben Norton's wedding are in full swing and her replacement as the local GP, Dr. Helen Trent, arrives and immediately has clash with Jenny. Speaking of Jenny Sergeant Merton is very worried about her and talks to Dr. Merrick about her, but the beautiful doctor assures him that there is nothing wrong with Jenny. For once Dr. Merrick is wrong and Jenny leaves the surgery unattended and unlocked. When Dr. Merrick returns she finds the surgery in a mess and some dangerous pills missing. When Jenny is confronted with she gets angry ...

The day of the wedding between Dr. Liz Merrick and Ben Norton is growing near, but the happy event is overshadowed by Jenny's mental illness and Sergeant Merton seriously considers getting a transfer to be near her and able to support her. PC Walker finds an abandoned car on the moor. It is registered to Angela Price, who has been kidnapped and the kidnappers have told her husband not to involve the police. But Sergeant Merton knows Price and finds out anyway and he suspects that the kidnappers hide out in a farm they have rented from Lord Ashfordly. Ben Norton nearly...

The Frankie Rio Trio once belonged at the top of the charts, but popularity has dropped and now they are struggling for a comeback. Now finances are so low they have to skip a hotel bill. They are on their way to Aidensfield, where they will stay with their old friend Vernon Scripps until an important gig in Whitby. On the way pick up a young woman, Rachel Godwin, and her baby and give her a lift to Aidensfield where her parents live. She has run away from a maternity hospital because she does not want to give up the baby for adoption and is now on her way to her ...

Rosie does the shopping for Miss Edgar. One morning she finds the old woman tied to a chair when she comes to deliver the groceries. Miss Edgar says the assailant posed as a representative from the Council and drove a grey van. It may have been the same van that forced Louise Parry off the road and nearly did the same to David in the brown lorry. David sees to the needs of Miss Parry getting her to the Aidensfield Arms and has Bernie pick up her car. She also asks him to deliver a letter to Dr. Trent's husband Matthew personally. He soon becomes their secret messenger...

The police are on the lookout for stolen Russian icons which have been unloaded in or around Whitby from a fishing boat owned by Ingmar Larsen who is currently in prison for smuggling and violence. The captain of the boat claims he thought they were smuggling cigarettes and that they were ambushed by pirates just off shore. They recover one of the icons at an antique shop, and the owner tells PC Walker that he bought it from a blonde woman in her thirties. Lord Ashfordly is having a banquet for true gourmets. Vernon Scripps quite the right idea when he learns about ...

The future has arrived at the Ashfordly police station in the form of the new sergeant George Miller and a state-of-the-art Ford Zephyr police car. He also has plans to close down the police house in Aidensfield and move PC Walker to Ashfordly permanently. Apart from that Sergeant Miller is very old-fashioned and extremely narrow-minded. His first case in charge of the Ashfordly police is a series of wage snatches. After yet another snatch PC Bellamy and the Zephyr's regular driver PC Yates give chase to two suspects in a Mini Cooper, but they are shaken off when the ...

A couple walking their dog on the beach discovers a dead man by the water's edge. The only thing they can find out about him is that he died of a fall from a cliff. PC Walker is contacted by his old friend Jackie Pointer. Her brother Tony is in jail and he has picked up some information on a robbery being planned and is willing to share this information for an early release. Walker contacts Sergeant Miller, who will have nothing to do with the matter. Walker decides to see Tony anyway and maybe get some more information. Bernie Scripps is having one of those days ...

PC Bellamy takes over one of Alf Ventress' old contacts, Vic Smalley. From him he learns about Ray Craven, who is flush with money and it is not through taking sheep to market, which is his official business. But Bellamy does not exactly make the top of Sergeant Miller's charts when the police make a raid on one of Craven's lorries and find only sheep. When Gina tidies up in her guest Derek Ford's room she discovers that he works for the Inland Revenue. He is "on tour" in the area and Vernon Scripps is next on his list. In fact Scripps owes so much in back tax that he...

Sergeant Miller is "off to learn the patch" as he calls it when he spots a speeding car and give chase, but the driver, David's Aunt Peggy, easily manage to lose him, ruining his day completely. It will not be the last time she does that and their relation will soon be just like the one between Oscar Blaketon and good old Claude Jeremiah Greengrass. Rob Walker has been dating the nurse Clare Owen since she took care of him after he crashed on his motorcycle. They are both invited to a party celebrating the arrival of a new doctor at the hospital, Gavin Kennedy, who ...

Lots of different things have been stolen in Aidensfield over the years, but an entire train loaded with crates of wine must be a novelty. Whoever stole the wagons had access to a locomotive and enough space to hide the whole train. They must also have enough knowledge about railways to operate a train. When a wagon load of tobacco is coming through the police decide to use a similar wagon full of police officers as a decoy. Helen Trent has started the proceedings to get divorced from her husband and Gina invites her to a girl's night out to cheer her up. Phil also ...

Like many girls Pattie and Sheila Reilly likes horses. One day Pattie takes a ride on a stray pony. An unknown man surprises them and very unwisely fires a shot in the air. The sudden bang startles the horse and makes it bolt. Pattie is thrown off and her scared kid sister flags down PC Walker, who gets both of them to Dr. Trent's surgery. He also has his own, more romantic reason to see the attractive doctor. When Walker tries to find both the owner of the pony and the shooter he suddenly finds himself investigating a series of horse thefts. His life is not made any ...

Young Denny gets hurt in a hunting accident at the Ashfordly estate. Luckily he sustains only a flesh wound. The police interview all the members of the hunting party to get a clear picture and also collect their guns for testing. But the estate manager Richard Bentham for some reason does not want them to talk to the beaters Gary and Colin, whom he tells to scarper. Bentham also fails to report an accident he has with his Land Rover because the brakes were sabotaged. Furthermore when PC Bellamy questions Denny the boy says that the shooting was no accident. That ...

PC Walker and PC Bellamy are investigating a break-in at Lionel Morris' off license and general store when they spot an old friend of the police, Colin Sneddon. Sneddon has a history of confessing to just about every crime in town and soon he is at the police station to confess to this one too. When the police do not believe him he confesses to the unsolved murder of a little girl eleven years back. His confession makes quite a stir in Aidensfield and this time he is harder to dismiss, because human remains are found at the spot where he said he buried the girl's body...

Lord Ashfordly plays host to a group of ex-offenders, who will be working on the estate under the supervision of Eric Grey as part of a rehabilitation programme. But not all of the young men are that keen on getting rehabilitated and only want to make trouble. For starters they steal Oscar Blaketon's car when he refuses to serve them at the pub. Dorothy Plum is complaining that someone is disturbing her little dog Marigold, but a search of her garden and the road outside turns up nothing. The old lady gets really worried when the dog disappears and she offers a big ...

Albert Wilson witnesses how Peter Roberts is hit by a hit-an-run car. Wilson is sure it was no accident and is able to give a full description of the car. It belongs to Derek Wallis, who claims that it was stolen. He also has an alibi which is corroborated by his employer Elsa Jenner, but Albert Wilson is almost positive that it was Wallis, who drove the car. Aunt Peggy "happens to come across" a lot of cheap cigarettes, but they seem to contain something with a little more kick than ordinary tobacco. The cigarettes also come from different supplier and he wants them ...

Gina discovers a cut off left hand in her dustbin. The police immediately start searching for more body parts in other dustbins in Aidensfield with no luck. The hand was in a box and in that box the police find a note in Bernie Scripps' handwriting. Bernie does not remember writing the note, but from its contents he reckons it is from a rough invoice he wrote to Ashfordly Hall. And it dates five years back. The discovery of a torso the next day leads to the conclusion that the body had been frozen until recently - and that it is murder! Speaking of freezing Aunt Peggy...