Episode 21 - The showdown

Meanwhile, on Mia’s advice, Cleo and Daphne had moved from the canteen to the observation room next to Greg’s office. Gary and Greg would interview Collins there.

Episode 20 - The tangled web

Since Greg was preoccupied with his own life, Gary was obliged to get the the end of the case without him, and that involved getting at the truth about Ronnie Fish’s murder. There were suspects enough, but none stood out as being especially likely to have assassinated Ronnie Fish.

Episode 19 - Guilty or not guilty

The rest of the afternoon at HQ was taken up with the administrative duties that went with the job of superintendent.

Episode 18 - The bug

Nigel concentrated on his driving. Gary had taken the family van because Cleo needed the little red car and it was a rather heavy sort of vehicle, though the power steering helped.

“Do you have to come to work in a bus?” Nigel said. He was coping, but cautious.

Episode 17 - The breakdown

Wednesday started early for Gary, who made breakfast for all comers, and only a little later for Cleo, who wanted to talk to him about the day’s plans after it had been too late to discuss things in detail the previous evening.

Episode 16 - The lion's den

After completing what had to be completed at HQ, Gary disentangled himself, told Nigel to hold the fort and not stand any nonsense from the arrestees, and drove home to a late lunch. He could access reports from there and wanted to get to Dorothy’s cottage to be close to Gibbons’ place. But first he wanted to talk things through with Cleo.

Episode 15 - The small world

Gary stopped Cleo’s red car in front of a pompous-looking villa on the edge of Middlethumpton. Midas Avenue was clearly nouveau riche. The shapely front lawns looked like artificial turf  and the flower-beds looked as if they contained pre-ordered pots full of plants and flowers that don’t grow outside in temperate climates.

Episode 14 - The dreamer

It was some hours before Gary could escape from his job at HQ and drive home. There were too many open questions and far too few survivors to answer them. He and Nigel would adjourn till the following day. 

Episode 13 - The interview

Nigel had talked to Daphne on the phone and she was going to be at HQ by eleven, when the new receptionist had started her shift at the Gazette. Daphne had recovered from her ‘audition’ week. The mystery was just how she had managed to get out unscathed. Fish and his acolytes must have had more pressing worries, or they had deliberately made it possible for her to leave. 

Daphne declared that she had put it all behind her. 

Episode 12 - The engagement

Greg took things into his own hands for the rest of Saturday. After Gary had gone home he sat at his work-space for a while trying to decide how much rope Gary would give him when it came to the crunch. Gary still had a lot to learn about delegating and in the case of Fish’s assassination there was no time to lose.

Episode 11 - The sisters

Although Gary wanred to present a laid-back image, he was in fact extremely disturbed by the assassination of Ronnie Fish. He phoned Cleo because she brought reality back into his life through direct comments on what was going on. The cops and robbers of his fertile imagination often had the habit of becoming a reality he wished would go away.

Episode 10 - The colour black

At 5 in the morning, Gary woke stiff from hunched up hours on the sofa and shivered as he threw off his clothes and crept under the communal duvet. Cleo inevitably woke.

“I’m really really cold,” said Gary. The modest central heating Cleo had installed when she first arrived in Upper Thumpton would not come back oin for another hour.

Episode 9 - The cocktail

Gary remembered Daphne telling him that another young woman had been missing for about a year. He knew of no report that Bertie Browne would surely have made if an employee simply disappeared with no explanation given. Although chasing missing persons was not the job of the homicide department, he would have known if Bertie had made a fuss.

Episode 8 - The replacement

After successfully negotiating breakfast at the cottage, Gary still had time for another coffee before Gary went to HQ to talk to the two suspects lined up.

Episode 7 - The friends

Dorothy explained to anyone who wanted to hear that she had gone to complain that her advert for the new sleuthing agency she was planning had been published an edition too early. But the girl she had spoken to when she placed the article, Daphne, had disappeared, according to  her colleague.

Episode 6 - The return

Jet could or would not identify the man for whom Daphne had ditched him and continued to insist that he did not know the woman in the bathtub.

Episode 5 - The matchmaker

Chris managed to get a decent night’s sleep on the narrow couch he had set up in the lab for when he had no time to go home, before opening the corpse of the unidentified woman early on Thursday morning. Nigel was also at work early and had tried to identify the dead woman through various search engines the police use to find identities. On Gary’s instruction he had obtained Len’s photos, but his search was negative. The woman had no police record.

Episode 4 - The boyfriend

Lunch at Romano’s bistro was turbulent, not least because of Gloria, Cleo’s mother, a boisterous, flamboyant person who now worked as the hostess at the restaurant.

Episode 3 - The death

Breakfast next morning was the usual chaotic event at the cottage. Gary got up as soon as PeggySue called out that she was awake and hungry (in so many words). While Gary fed and watered the breakfast attendees, Cleo fed the new babies. They had not exchanged a single word with one another.

Episode 2 - The receptionist

Superintendent CDI Gareth Hurley knew that he would have to get on to the woman named Daphne before Dorothy had a chance to phone him and check if he was taking the recording and its implications seriously. From liking Gary to loving him, and back again to not being quite as convinced about this tall officious man with Indian roots and a sharp tongue (to equal hers), 

Episode 1 - The dream

Monday

"I woke suddenly.  At first I thought someone must be creeping about the flat, although I know I had checked that all doors and windows were shut tight. I mused that it would take a very acrobatic intruder to get to my loggia. My flat is on the third floor of a tall building. It includes part of a covered balcony that runs almost all the way round on every floor. I can only get onto it through my living-room, and the glass door is kept locked except when I sit outside. To my knowledge, no one has ever swung himself upwards from floor to floor on the outside. Spiderman would find 5 floors too little of a challenge, and ordinary burglars would find places easier to get into.

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