Shoestring

1. E1. Room With a View

   Oct 5, 1980

   Retired music hall singer Lettie Ross witnesses a murder in the empty house opposite her flat, but when police and her daughter are dismissive, she calls in Eddie. His investigations lead to Duke Winsor, a slum landlord who has just purchased the house, and Alan Fuller, another potential buyer - who proves to be the victim. In the event the basement flat in Lettie's block, leased to concert performers, is the key to the affair.

2. E2. The Teddy Bears' Nightmare

   Oct 12, 1980

   While out fishing, Don sees a thief rob a young couple of the woman's handbag but the couple themselves flee and fail to report the theft. Don retrieves the bag and Eddie traces it to Christine Page, who eventually admits that she and her married lover, Ken Bailey, are being blackmailed. However, the blackmailer is not after money...

3. E3. Mocking Bird

   Oct 19, 1980

   Young women are being mugged around the city and the perpetrator, a caller with an Ulster accent, keeps ringing Eddie and taunting him for his inability to catch him. Police are called in but smug inspector Healey is little help. After Sonia is attacked, Tom, a security guard at the station and former policeman, recognizes the caller's voice from his days as a hospital DJ and points Eddie towards him.

4. E4. The Mayfly Dance

   Oct 26, 1980

   Don asks Eddie to locate Jody Brent, a once-popular singer whose big hit 'Lazy Daisy' is enjoying a revival on Radio West's easy listening show. Though Miriam, Jody's manager, claims he is in America, Eddie hears that he is living in Wales in seclusion. Mike Frewin, Jody's former bandmate, asks the station for royalties as he part wrote the song but is refused, after which he visits Vera who has requested it under the name of a girl who died twenty years earlier.

5. E5. The Farmer Had a Wife

   Nov 2, 1980

   To encourage more human interest stories, Don persuades Eddie to help watercress farmer David Mortimer, whose wife Rosemary has disappeared for a second time, and is being accused by other villagers of murdering her, to try and locate her. The trail leads to ex-doctor Knightley in whom she confided about her husband's jealous, controlling nature and with whom she had a child, now nine years old and adopted.

6. E6. Utmost Good Faith

   Nov 9, 1980

   After her debt-ridden husband Tim has killed himself, Mary Reynolds asks Eddie's help in discovering why her credit facilities have been stopped when the debt concerned was twelve years earlier and apparently cancelled. Eddie discovers that Tim was working on a computer which diagnosed faults in cars and that the debt collection firm harassing Mary is linked to a large computer company anxious to bankrupt small firms like the Reynolds'. By leaning on a former colleague who has joined the debt collectors through fraudulent means Eddie is able to help Mary but not, apparently, his own credit rating.

+4 more episodes — open all seasons to browse every episode.