Pie in the Sky

- Season 4

(1996)

Henry and Margaret spend a day at the races with her new client Bob Bishop, who is resisting a take-over bid for his cider brewery. A mysterious man shadows Henry and then the corpse of stable lad Ben Tucker is found in a horse-box. Bob's brother Tony owns the stables, which are failing, and he is very curt with Henry when he comes to investigate. On the night he died Ben had argued with another stable lad Jerry Lawless over female jockey Jude O'Brien but he too is murdered and Bob's daughter Liz, another jockey, is found in his caravan with a bag full of bank-notes.

Liz claims the money is winnings from a bet and Henry releases her but notes that Jerry too has a healthy bank balance and surmises he was trading inside information for cash. Tony apologizes to Henry but tries to push Bob into accepting the take-over and Henry's mystery man proves to be a private eye, since Tony has been fixing races and the Jockey Club have hired him to get proof. Henry believes Tony got Jerry to nobble his horses and killed Ben when he found out. He has the correct motive but the wrong suspect and it's Margaret who literally stumbles on the real ...

The Chen family appear to be victims of racial harassment when their Chinese takeaway is set on fire, but widowed Mr. Chen will not go to the police so his daughter Mei asks Henry for help. It turns out that Chen is a gambler deeply in debt to a restauranteur in London's Chinatown who has been threatening him for the money he owes. When Pie in the Sky makes it to the final of the Great British Grub contest being held in London, Henry uses the trip to visit Chinatown and act as go-between. A winner and a loser return to Middleton come the end of the day.

When Fisher allocates Henry to guard Sasha Wilkes, due to testify against her gangster husband, in the police 'safe house', D.C.I. Harding, who had expected the job, is resentful. Sasha is initially hostile but, won over by Henry's cooking, comes to confide in him. Harding uses a drug pusher called Vicky, who once knew Henderson, to discredit Henry and also discloses the safe house's location to Wilkes. Henry averts disaster and parts as friends with Sasha but wonders if they were used as bait by Fisher because he already suspected Harding.

To save money Fisher turns over the police catering to a mass production company, The Happy Ploughman, clients of Margaret. Henry is appalled but investigates after several acts of sabotage against the firm. Former police canteen manager Tom Selly and his bread supplier Flora McKee are suspects and Henry arrests Flora. However such is the resentment in the force that no one uses the new automated canteen and Fisher hints that he would like to find discrepancies in The Happy Ploughman's books that would allow him to revoke the franchise. Henry duly obliges, as well as ...

Armed robbers in crash helmets target the restaurant and customer Cherry Burdett's jewellery is stolen. Obnoxious D.S. Stringer investigates, alienating everyone with his insistence that it was an inside job and a staff member alerted the robbers to Cherry's booking. He accuses Gary because of his past, then Nicola - at whom he makes a pass - and her boyfriend Paul. When news of the robbery reaches the press Henry closes the restaurant to do his own investigation, solving the crime in time to mark two years of Gary giving up alcohol with a celebratory cake.