User Reviews

Written by Trevor Preston you would think this would be more action packed.

In fact it is a layered character piece but I did feel it fizzled out without a proper ending.

Craven has been watching Yearsley. When they search his flat they find a forged passport and a gun. Yearsley is planning a trip to Portugal but Special Branch pick him up and bring him in for questioning.

You would think it might be for the forged passport or the gun, although you soon find out that Yearsley was in the army once.

It turns out that Yearsley was sent to jail for blackmailing a tycoon who he worked. Yearsley discovered that the tycoon was embezzling from his company.

Craven is more interested in just how much he knew about the tycoon as he had senior government contacts.

Yearsley himself is mentally fragile and Craven pushes him hard. He wants to find out just how much he knew about the tycoon's own later death which was attributed to suicide.

I believe the story might had been inspired by Harold Wilson's Labour government of the 1960s. He befriended tycoons some of them who turned out to be dubious.

I am not the biggest fan of the "Special Branch" series from "Euston Films" but this episode is surprisingly good. A known fraudster is arrested at the beginning and after being taken to the station, Craven makes it clear what his real intentions are toward this fraudster. The latter has been kept under surveillance by Special Branch since his release from prison. The real reason for his being held, is because Craven wants to know what occurred 4 years previously when a well known business tycoon was imbezzling company funds that were supposed to be used to build a new city in Africa. The fraudster worked at the same firm and accidentally caught on to what this tycoon was doing. As a result, he began blackmailing him. All the details are revealed via lengthy interrogations and it makes for gripping viewing. The fraudster isn't exactly a hard case, he's rather vulnerable and fragile. Craven isn't satisfied that the blackmail was a one man job and begins pressing this man for the truth. There aren't any flashback scenes during the mention of the business tycoon in question but there isn't any need. The script is very descriptive and you can easily picture in your mind's eye, the setting of that of the company offices, the staff, the business tycoon. He is not portrayed as being a particularly sympathetic character, as he was a thief and rather sadistic in his business methods and the way he treated his staff. The only thing that disappointed me slightly, was that the ending left everything in mid air. Regardless, this is the one of the better episodes.