The Value of Nothing
DC Duncan Lennox is on a week's secondment to Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad. Investigating a young woman, Tessa Gannon, who tried to sell a forged painting to a gallery, Lennox finds a receipt from a gallery owned by an art dealer named Ivor Gregory, who has form for deception. Lennox befriends an artist named Richard Townes, who charges into Gregory's gallery as Lennox peruses the paintings. In the hope of getting a closer look at one of the paintings, Lennox arranges for his wife Shona to buy one of them. He gets it verfied, and is disappointed when it is an original. Shona insists on keeping it, but sends it back to the gallery to be re-framed. When the painting is returned, Lennox realises Gregory has swapped it for a fake, and it's the work of Richard Townes, but to his horror, Shona returns the painting to Gregory before the squad can arrest him. Tessa Gannon admits she had a painting copied by Townes, but she too is in possession of a fake. Gregory is arrested, and Lenn
More from Season 17
Episode 1
Appropriate Action
A teenage boy is found badly beaten, and a young girl, Lisa, from the same school is missing. DC Webb shows little interest in the case, so Sgt Cryer investigates the girl's disappearance himself. A local 'photographer', Andrew Morton, is the main suspect, as he has an obsession with Lisa and her friends, and he is arrested when PC Harker spots him acting suspiciously by the canal. When Lisa turns out to have been hiding out at a friend's house the whole time, Cryer must rush to prevent Lisa's father from taking the law into his own hands by killing the innocent Morton.
Episode 2
Criminal Practice
DC Webb and DC Riley wait outside a cafe, whilst inside DS Debbie McAllister is conducting a rather clumsy undercover sting on a suspected drug dealer. DI Cullen is furious when the suspect is released without charge following McAllister's poor handling of the case. Resentful of DS Singh's success in recruiting local informants, McAllister manages to coax some information from solicitor's clerk Jamie Ross, which eventually leads to a successful arrest when Ross's information blows apart a stabbing suspect's alibi. Pleased with her success, McAllister is determined to convince Ross to work as an informant for her. Meanwhile, DC Paul Riley meets up with his brother Joe, who seems to be in some trouble with the Nottingham police.
Episode 3
Upon Information Received
CID investigate a spate of car thefts, and DS McAllister's informant Jamie Ross gives her a tip-off about a gang of French car thieves working in the area. Ross is reluctant to name his contact though, who turns out to be Joe Riley, DC Paul Riley's brother. The gang is arrested, but are broken out of Canley Crown Court by a trio armed with shotguns. An SO19 raid on Joe Riley's lock-up sees them in custody again, but DC Riley must work hard to hide his brother's involvement, particularly as Ross informs McAllister that it goes deeper than Riley thinks.
Episode 4
No Victim
PC Worrell and PC Quinnan attend to a woman threatening to jump off a bridge. She turns out to be Sarah Collins, the wife of Terry Collins, a DS at Stafford Row CID. Despite the doubts of some of her colleagues, PC Worrell is determined to pursue the matter as a domestic violence case. She convinces Sarah to make a statement and testify in court by telling Sarah of her own experience with domestic violence. The case is dismissed, however - Sarah becomes reluctant to testify, and there are doubts about her character. When Worrell goes to check on her at the Collins house, she finds that Sarah has murdered her husband. Meanwhile, Dave Quinnan struggles to find the right time to tell his wife about his affair with Polly Page.
Episode 5
Common Language
A young Russian girl leads Dale Smith out of a nightclub, where he is promptly attacked by three men. Despite Smith's protests, Supt. Chandler assigns DI Cullen to investigate the assault. They track down the Russian woman, Natasha Ivanova, through a language school which seems to be recruiting students to work as prostitutes. Natasha is desperate as her visa is about to expire, and her sister has disappeared. Her sister is found murdered, and Smith realises the men responsible for her death and his assault are linked to a man from his old army unit (episode: Blurred Around the Edges).
Episode 6
PC Smith
Hoping it will convince Supt. Chandler to endorse his transfer to SO19, PC Smith volunteers with PC Klein to 'babysit' Clive Allein, the victim of a gay bashing who is reluctantly testifying against his assailant, Gary Cook, in court the next day. Smith nearly blows it when his angry reaction to Clive's partner Ian Jones's teasing causes Jones to run off, where he is promptly attacked, and Allein refusing to testify, until Smith convinces him otherwise. The trial goes ahead, and the attacker is found guilty, but further threats from Cook's friend Paul Taylor cause Ian to storm off again, this time he goes missing. Smith and Klein fear the worst when a stabbing victim is reported, but it turns out to be Paul Taylor who is the vicitm, and Ian Jones the attacker.
