Recap / Between The Lines 1992 S 1 E 1 Private Enterprise

"You want bent coppers? They're on offer at Mulberry Street nick."

— Andy Spence

Station Under Investigation: Mulberry Street

Andy Spence is a small-time drug dealer and snout working a London council estate. He gets lifted by his police handlers, DI Micky Flynn and DS Paul Tanner. Flynn complains that Andy's not been feeding them any decent intel lately. Tommy McMurray, a major dealer in the area, is about to pull off a huge deal. Flynn informs Andy that they're going to set Andy up as Tommy's first big customer. Later, Tommy goes to a deserted car park where he meets up with DI Harry Naylor and DS Maureen "Mo" Connell from the Met's Complaints Investigations Bureau, and tells them that he has information about corrupt police officers at Mulberry Street station.

Meanwhile, DCI Tony Clark has just learned that he's passed his promotion board and the he's up for a new posting as a Detective Superintendent, and is out celebrating at a pool hall with the rest of his colleagues, including Flynn, PC Dave Stoddart and WPC Jennifer Dean. His bosses, Chief Superintendent David Pollok and Superintendent Patrick Salter, are both there to congratulate him. He still has to wait until everything's been made official to find out which department he'll be sent to, but it's no secret that he's hoping to join the Flying Squad.

Later, Tony and Jenny are tidying themselves up after they've had sex in Tony's car at a spot near Albert Bridge. Tony tries to commiserate a little about his impending departure, saying that it will probably be better for both off their careers if they're working in different nicks.

At a meeting in New Scotland Yard the next day, Chief Superintendent John Deakin lays out the facts of a possible case of "private enterprise" happening at Mulberry Street to Harry and Mo, along with his boss, Commander Huxtable. The station has had several drug raids blown by word about major raids reaching the dealers before the raids are due to happen. Spence has come to them about an unnamed officer at the station being the one who does the tipping off, claiming that he's worried that if the next raid gets blown, Flynn and Tanner will frame him as the source of the leaks. Based on how tight security has been on the raids, Huxtable deduces that the leak must be coming from CID or a top uniform, which makes Pollok, Salter and Tony their three possible culprits. After dismissing Harry and Mo, Huxtable tells Deakin to look into Tony, but not to do anything officially.

That night, Tony's wife Sue, comes home from her shift at the hospital. Tony tells her that he's got an appointment at New Scotland with the Commander of the Flying Squad the day after next.

The next evening, the team at Mulberry Street raid Tommy McMurray's house, but realise too late that Tommy's clearly been tipped off since Tommy lets them know that they won't find anything except the joint he's got in his hand.

Tony arrives at New Scotland Yard the next morning for his meeting, only to discover he's been set up. The Flying Squad Commander only arranged the appointment so that Deakin and Huxtable could interview Tony about the goings-on at Mulberry Street.

Back at Mulberry Street itself, Polk and Salter mention that McMurray's been done for possession of cannabis but that no further charges were raised as a result of the failed raid. Flynn and Tanner head to Andy's flat to confront him about the raid being blown. Harry and Mo watch them briefly before they drive off with Andy in the back.

At NSY, Deakin and Huxtable grill Tony about Flynn's involvement in the raids. Tony defends Flynn, but Deakin makes it clear that there may not necessarily be a single culprit and that they aren't ruling Pollok and Salter out of their investigation.

Andy's hiding out in a squat on the estate with Harry and Mo. They try and get him to finger Flynn and Tanner, but he doesn't give them any new information.

Tony insists that he's co-operating with Deakin and Huxtable and that he doesn't have anything to hide where his finances are concerned. Deakin and Huxtable know about his affair with Jenny, but he insists that he wouldn't do anything to jeopardise his career just for the sake of keeping Sue from finding out. Deakin and Huxtable tell Tony that it would be in his own interests to help them and give him an ultimatum that requires an immediate response. Either he agrees to act as their man on the inside in their investigation or they'll investigate him as well.

Tony shows up at Andy's hideout, where he meets Harry and Mo for the first time. Tony says that he might take a crack at Andy to see if he can get anything out of him. Harry says that he had originally planned on keeping Andy separate from Tony for the sake of Tony's cover, but Tony assures Harry that no one will suspect him of infiltrating his own nick. Meanwhile, out on Andy's usual estate, PC Stoddart offers to let off a couple of Andy's regular customers for possession if they let him know when they next see Andy.

Tony interviews Andy and realises that Andy's come to CIB because his regular supplier has started working with McMurray and Andy's been cut out of the action. Tony demands to know the name of the supplier, but Andy doesn't give him anything. He goes over a raid carried out on the August Bank holiday weekend that got leaked despite a last-minute time change that only Tony, Flynn and Salter knew about in advance.

At Mulberry Street, Tony tries to sound out Flynn. He does a bit of performative grumbling about why they go to all the trouble of chasing down dealers when people will always find a way to get what they want, citing porn as an example. Flynn replies by saying that he knows that the more aggressive laws on porn ended up making some officers very rich. Harry and Mo show up at the squat where they've been keeping Andy, only to find that he's legged it.

Back at the nick, Tony tells Jenny he needs find out a bit more about what's been going on with Flynn and Tanner. When Jenny mentions that Stoddart's been running errands for them, Tony asks her to try and find out what he's been up to. Salter stops by Tony's office and offers him a couple of tickets to his lodge's Ladies' Night. Jenny manages to catch Stoddart on his way out and manages to get out of him that Tanner and Flynn have got him looking for Andy and that he's just found the squat where's been holed up. Flynn and Tanner meet up with Stoddart on the estate but tell him that they aren't going to approach him until he's on his own.

When Jenny tells Tony what she's learned, he tells Jenny to go home and races to the estate, where Flynn and Tanner in the process of putting the screws on Andy. Tony confronts Flynn and insists that he wants to grill Andy himself. Once they're in the car, Tony points out that he's the only one in any position to protect Andy and pushes again for the name of Andy's supplier. Andy finally yields and gives him a name - Paul Lucas.

Tony arrives at the CIB's office for the first time, where Harry and Mo have been digging up the details on Lucas. He's widely believed to be a major heroin importer, and was also a snout handled by Salter back when he was a DCI.

Tony takes Sue out to the Ladies' Night at Salter's lodge. Salter suggests Tony should start thinking about investing his money. Meanwhile, Carol, Salter's wife tells Sue all about her hairdressing business, which Pat helped her to set up. When Sue realises that Tony was using her to scope out Sue, she's furious.

CIB start scoping out one of Carol's salons. One of the women spotted is Sheila Curry, Paul Lucas' girlfriend and a airport greeter heroin mules.

Pat and Tony go out for a meal. Pat tells Tony about an investment opportunity he might be interested in, and even offers to front Tony the initial investment until it becomes profitable. Pat then says that Pollok's been on to him, wanting to know what's been keeping Tony so busy lately. Tony claims that he's going after Paul Lucas, which Pat tries to shrug off, saying that Lucas has managed to slip through the cracks before.

Tony, Harry and Mo show up at Sheila Curry's flat with a warrant, where they find coke and cash due to be dropped off at the salon. They get Sheila to agree to make the drop as planned, and then follow Salter when he goes to deposit the cash at the bank. The bank manager confirms that the cash contains notes from payment delivered to Sheila.

Tony returns Mulberry Street to discover that CIB have closed the station and are turning the place inside out. Tony's horrified that Deakin is going to give everyone in the nick a going-over even there's no evidence to suggest that anyone else was in on Salter's con. This is when Deakin tells Tony that his new position as Superintendent will be in CIB.

Provides examples of:

• As You Know: Tony does a bit of this when discussing a raid that went down on the August bank holiday weekend.
  Tony: Notting Hill Carnival. You know what that means in the Met.
  Harry: Year, all leave cancelled, everybody on stand-by.
• Batman Gambit: Discussed. Knowing that police typically look for a common factor in a series of crimes, Deakin says that there doesn't need to be just one culprit behind the corruption at Mulberry Street:
  Deakin: If there is private enterprise going down at Mulberry Street, it doesn't have to be the one bad apple. If me and Mr Huxtable were doing it, we'd make sure one of us wasn't the common factor. He'd do a bit when I was in Lanzarote and I'd do a bit when he was in the Dordogne.
  Huxtable: Only common sense.
  • Tony originally planned the August Bank holiday raid on the basis that none of the dealers would expect one since all the Met's resources are usually committed to the Notting Hill Carnival.
• Benevolent Boss: ZigZagged Despite having been forced into a position where he's been forced to investigate his own colleagues, and his past Selective Obliviousness to some of his subordinates' methods, Tony still feels responsible when CIB decides to turn over the whole station once Salter's been caught.
  "This is my firm. We look after each other."
• The Big Board: Harry and Mo have been working on one by the time Tony shows up at the CIB office for the first
• Blatant Lies: When Sue asks Tony if he's recovered from his night out celebrating his promotion, Tony casually says that he had to make a night of it because "the lads expect it", but that he stopped things getting too wild. This is all a cover for the fact that he was actually with Jenny later that night.
• Broken Pedestal: Although Sue says that Tony was never all that chummy with Salter in the past, Tony still looks pretty devasted when Salter finally learns that he'd been involved in investigating them.
• Clueless Boss: Invoked by Tony, who explains to Jenny that his philosophy as a boss is to have people that he trusts to get on with things without too much oversight from him. This amounts to a certain level of Selective Obliviousness, with Tony evidently having left Flynn and Tanner to run roughshod over Andy, and presumably others like him, in the name of getting results.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Deakin delivers one of these to Tony before he can get any ideas about revealing his and Huxtable's plan to use Tony as their mole:
  "[I]f we find you're having us over backwards, Tony, we'll do your legs like a steamroller."
• Dirty Cop: At first, Sheila thinks Tony, Harry and Mo are trying to extort her for the cash she needs to drop off, but they just want her to deliver it so they can solidify the link between Lucas and Salter.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When the police show up at his house and find him naked on his bed, he doesn't bother to cover up and smugly holds up the spliff he's been smoking.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Once Andy gives Tony Paul Lucas' name, the focus of the investigation shifts from Tanner and Flynn to Salter.
• Happily Married: Subverted. In Tony and Sue's first scene together, they seem to be quite happy together. This already makes Tony look like a scumbag as we've just seen him cheating on her with Jenny, but in his meetings with Deakin and Huxtable we find out that Tony's cheated on Sue before.
• Humiliation Conga: Just after Deakin tells him that he's being posted to CIB, Tony's colleagues walk past and look at him with silent contempt now that they know he was the one who had been investigating Salter.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Tony is completely horrified when he learns that CIB is going to give the whole of Mulberry Street a going-over after they catch Salter.
• Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: In their first meeting, Tony says that if Deakin and Huxtable aren't officially investigating him then he's going to walk out and contact the Police Federation. Deakin manages to dissuade him by saying that he doesn't want to be in the position of being under an official investigation while he's still angling for a good posting after his promotion board.
• Only in It for the Money: When Mo finds Sheila's bag of cash in her flat, she says bitterly, "I expect that's why you joined."
• Police Brutality: At the pool hall, Flynn and Stoddart talk about how Tony was much more heavy-handed in the past, but has since discovered he's much better suited to climbing the greasy pole.
  Stoddart: Bit tasty, was he?
  Flynn: ''If he gave you the old truth drug, you knew about it. You wouldn't know it now `cause he's born to it, Son. Moved up to Superintendent. Knows how to play it."
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Tony says to Flynn that getting his promotion doesn't mean he couldn't get stuck in a less glamorous role like training or community liaison work.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Tony's first meeting with Deakin and Huxtable:
  Deakin: You don't mind if we call you "Tony", do you?
  Tony: With respect, Sir, it doesn't matter whether I'm comfortable whether you call me Mickey Mouse.
  • Tony mentions a previous raid carried out on the Marchmain estate.
  • The band at the lodge do sings "Witchcraft" by Frank Sinatra.
  • Harry quotes Basil Brush's "boom-boom" catchphrase at one point.
• SWAT Team: At the raid on Tommy McMurray's house, the cops use a land rover to pull the bars off one of the front windows and enter through there rather than breaking the door down.
• Title Drop: "Private Enterprise" is Met jargon for corruption with a financial motive.
• Witness Protection: Andy asks about the possibility of going into hiding with a new identity, but Harry tells him that that's only for people who are much more valuable sources than him.
• You Watch Too Much X: Andy insists that the "word on the street" was how he heard about upcoming raids, prompting Tony to remark that he "watches too many films."