New Tricks

21 May, 2006 by The_Boss

BBC ONE Mon 22 May 2006, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm

When police informant Pete MacKintyre returns to the UK for his son’s 18th birthday after 17 years on the run, he claims he has fresh evidence about an unsolved armed robbery in which a bank cashier was shot and killed, as the detective drama continues.

The police have long suspected the man behind the robbery to be known criminal Ray Cook, now a C-list celebrity and angry to be in UCOS’s radar. With MacKintyre’s help, Standing recovers a sawn-off shotgun and a microtape, which Lane discovers is the audio of the robbery.

The gun is a link to Ray Cook – but with a watertight alibi of being at his mother’s deathbed on the day of the robbery, Cook is proving difficult to nail and even more difficult to track down to interview. Halford and Lane interview Geoff Lyons, a former security guard for the bank at the time of the robbery and an ex-copper.

While Lyons is keen to point the finger at Cook, it becomes clear that this wasn’t a one man operation. Elsewhere, suspicious that Pullman is going on a date with DAC Strickland, the team follow her to the Hero of the Year awards.
There, Standing is confronted by an old colleague, Rob Petty, and can barely disguise his disgust that Petty is attending as a nominated hero.There is clearly history between the two men, but how will Standing feel when his boss invites Petty to contribute to the case?

Pete MacKintyre is played by Anton Lesser, Ray Cook by Steven Berkoff, Gerry Standing by Dennis Waterman, Brian Lane by Alun Armstrong, Jack Halford by James Bolam, Geoff Lyons by David Roper, Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman by Amanda Redman, DAC Strickland by Anthony Calf and Rob Petty by Gareth Hunt.