Episode
The Bill: Foreign Body
Overview
A suspected armed robber dies after his car crashes during a chase with police. He is identified as Alain Savoie, a French national, and the body of an English woman is found in the boot of his stolen car. The woman is identified as Carol Archer, and scorch marks on her back indicate she was electrocuted in her bathtub, and Savoie was trying to dispose of the body. According to Carol's mother, Carol's husband Peter was in France looking for her. DI Chris Deakin, a fluent Francophone, suggests they send officers to interview Savoie's sister in France. DCI Jack Meadows insists on making the trip himself, and Deakin suggests he take DC Rod Skase with him. Once they are on the ferry, Meadows and Skase realise neither of them can speak French. With some trouble they manage to find their hotel, and despite the language barrier, Meadows clearly hits it off with the landlady Claudette. CID hear that Peter Archer is headed back to England, but he does not board the ferry, and Interpol reports t
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 15
- Episode
- Episode 37
- Air date
- 1999-06-24
Episode context
Foreign Body is Episode 37 in Season 15 of The Bill. It aired on 1999-06-24.
Previous / Next
Episode 36: Kiss Off
Vicki Hagen finds Eddie Santini's tickets to Amsterdam, and questions him about them, but he is evasive. DCI Pallister takes DS Fox off the Jessica Orton case after her accusations against Santini, but she decides to do some investigation of her own. Santini, meanwhile, acquires a gun and some Class-A drugs to plant in Ferguson's boss's house when DS Timpney and the Area Drugs Squad raid it. Fox stumbles upon the house and is captured by Ferguson. His boss Mr Sherman is displeased that Santini allowed a police officer to find them. When Area Drugs arrive at Sun Hill for the raid, CID realise that both Santini and Fox are in trouble. Sure enough, Ferguson's radio scanner warns him of the forthcoming raid and he locks Santini in the same room as Fox. The two argue, but are pulled apart when Santini attacks Fox. She manages to escape, and Sherman's men are intercepted by SO19. Back at Sun Hill, Fox realises the keys in Hagen's possession are Jessica Orton's - and she arrests Santini for m
Episode 38: Borderline
A CID raid nets a gun which DS Beech believes could have been used in a recent shooting. New PC Cass Rickman is entrusted with the task of taking the gun to the lab for forensic testing, but when she stops the car to render assistance to a mugging victim, a young man reaches in and steals it. Borough Commander Mannion arrives to take charge of the investigation - Operation Loose Cannon. DS Beech's contacts come up with someone wanting to sell a gun, and he, Brownlow and Rickman organise their own operation to retrieve it, with Rickman posing undercover as the buyer. Rickman meets Leroy Jones, and Endean and Andrews, the original owners of the gun who want it back, but the operation is blown when Mannion's team almost raid the pub where the meeting is taking place. Rickman arranges to meet Jones later, and buys the gun back, but is attacked by Endean and Andrews. She fires the gun in the air, which scares them off, and alerts Brownlow, Mannion and Beech to her position. Leroy Jones is a
More episodes from this season
Episode 35: Push It
Jessica Orton is brought in for questioning, but is released without charge. When she returns home, PC Santini is waiting for her, desperate to know if she grassed him up. They fight, and Santini hits Jessica, knocking her down the stairs and killing her. Realising her house is being watched, he escapes out the back. Vicki Hagen finds a set of keys under Santini's bed which she brings to the station to return to him.
Episode 39: Confessions Of A Zookeeper
Ch. Insp. Derek Conway organises a charity 'lock-up' in the Sun Hill cells - the prisoners for the night being himself, Insp. Monroe, famous boxer Dion Barrie and his manager Max Weir, and Paul Lake, the father of the sick little girl they are raising money for. When Monroe calls in sick, Ch. Supt. Brownlow volunteers to take his place. Sgt. Matt Boyden as custody sergeant must cope with having his superior officers in the cells, as well as a large group of drunken female rugby players. DS Feeney from Barton Street turns up to investigate Barrie for an attempted murder, but Boyden works out that his manager is the man responsible.
Episode 34: Old Flame
As he and PC Quinnan investigate a burglar alarm, PC Eddie Santini sees Jessica Orton meeting covertly with Ferguson. Making excuses, Santini borrows the panda car and races to the Ortons' club where he confronts Jessica. As she storms off, there is a huge explosion. Santini is shocked when one of the officers assigned by AMIP to investigate the explosion is his old nemesis, DS Rosie Fox. Fox is suspiscious of Santini's involvement, but her colleagues put it down to the animosity between them. As Santini returns to his flat, where his lover PC Vicky Hagen is waiting, he is kidnapped by Ferguson who assigns him the task of picking up a consignment of drugs from Amsterdam.
Episode 40: Pillow Talk
Worrell and Harker attend a deliberate hit and run. Quinnan and Garfield are tasked with tracking down the driver, Oliver Beaumann, who has allegedly run over his wife. When they transfer Beaumann to the nick, he passes out in the van. At the hospital a doctor asks one of them to stay, and while Garfield is happy at the idea of staying with Jenny for the night, Cryer demands Quinnan stays. Garfield is suspicious as Jenny is distant with him, and she later mentions to Quinnan she's doubtful over what Garfield wants long term. As they are distracted, Beaumann tries to escape, but Quinnan drags him back in. Beaumann then claims the husband of his wife's best friend is having an affair with his wife, and that he is armed with a gun intent on getting Beaumann out of the way. Quinnan is skeptical, but is quickly drawn into an armed siege.
Episode 33: Lone Ranger
PC Eddie Santini tries to convince his lover, Jess Orton, to set him up with some drug dealers - he wants out of Sun Hill, and DS Timpney, his friend in Area Drugs, has promised him a place in the squad if Santini can get him evidence on them. At parade, Sgt. Bob Cryer assigns the relief a door-knocking campaign to warn the elderly residents of the area about two bogus callers posing as social workers who are responsible for a string of robberies. Leaving PC Hagen to cover for him, Santini meets Jessica, but not before hearing the culprits have been following the local Meals-On-Wheels van. Jessica has met up with an old friend, Ferguson, who is a big-time drugs importer. She wants Eddie to pose as her husband when they next meet to seal the deal. When Eddie returns to duty, Cryer is furious. An old army Major has had all his medals stolen by the bogus callers, and Santini had neglected to warn him. A desperate Santini gets Hagen to investigate the Major, and finds his claim is a scam.
Episode 41: Heavy Plant Crossing
Sgt. Matt Boyden organises a simple obbo to catch a gang stealing an excavator from a building site. The situation is made more complicated when another gang turn up carrying guns and a man is shot and abducted. As Boyden angrily collars his snout, PC Garfield and PC Quinnan volunteer to check the hospital. Garfield's girlfriend Jenny is about to leave for South America, and he is keen to ask her to marry him, however Quinnan gets word that Jenny actually has feelings for him. As Garfield tries to organise a romantic dinner, DS Beech poaches Boyden's snout, but he too is given bad information. Garfield's dinner plans are a disaster, but he manages to catch Jenny at the nurses' home. He pops the question, but she declines, as Dave Quinnan watches from the car outside.
Episode 32: Set Up
A young girl, Emma Finney, is attacked in the street and DC Kerry Holmes suspects a racial motive, as Emma and her family are gypsies living on a nearby waste ground. Holmes and an impatient DS Boulton are unable to get any information out of them, and Boulton even has Emma's older brother Michael arrested when he drives off with a rifle in his truck. Boulton has other things on his mind: he has an upcoming interview for a transfer to the Flying Squad. With Michael locked up for the night, Holmes worries about the Finneys' safety. As she watches their caravan, three men approach and firebomb it, Kerry barely manages to save them in time. Angry at Boulton's attitude to the case and his colleagues, Holmes arranges for an old friend, DI Long who is on Boulton's interview panel, to give him a real grilling and then pass the videotape on to her, which she gleefully shows to the rest of CID. Boulton is furious, but DI Deakin convinces him his attitude and methods are to blame for his colleag
Episode 42: Good Relations
Rising crime levels on the council estates sees Ch. Supt. Brownlow with two additional problems: a gang of over-zealous security guards patrolling the Copthorne Estate, and a ""mobile community liaison unit"" - a caravan done up by PC Reg Hollis. When these two initiatives rankle a local gang, the guards are attacked at one end of the estate and Hollis finds himself a hostage in a potentially explosive situation. Managing to get the potential arsonist Tony Leyton on side with tales of his past misdemenours, Hollis convinces Leyton to make a statement naming Danny McCormack as the ringleader in the attacks, but the rug is pulled out from under him when Brownlow cuts a deal with McCormack in order to preserve their public image.
Episode 31: Tinderbox
Tension, drama and comical mishaps abound as Brownlow, Meadows and Conway head to the Yorkshire Moors for an orientation course alongside the top brass from Barton Street. The tension builds as Conway backs out of the rock climbing due to his fear of heights, and Meadows is reprimanded by the instructor for both abandoning Conway to complete the test alone and his continual attempts to contact Daly as he tries to keep abreast of the investigation into an armed robber, who has stunned CID by suddenly handing himself into custody. Meanwhile, Brownlow clashes with his Barton Street counterpart Guy Mannion, a fast-track young go-getter who is prime candidate to rival Brownlow for the Borough Commander post. As the teams are tasked with crossing the Moors, Meadows plots an escape, but they unite in their determination to beat the Barton Street contingent after discovering they have used the Stafford Row team's knowledge of the course to give them an edge.
Episode 43: Big Fish
Skase is skeptical when an informant tells him a small-time dealer is in cahoots with a South American dealer. However, when his informant mentions a major contact, Skase gets his hopes up and pushes Deakin to conduct a raid. When the raid goes down, Skase is concerned when the cash briefcase is a dud, but he uncovers multiple kilograms of cocaine in the seller's briefcase. Skase and Deakin are paraded as heroes in the wake of the raid, but their glory is about taken from them by the National Crime Squad after they identify the seller as Ben Carter, who is wanted in several countries around the world. Events take a sinister turn when Skase's informant turns up dead, and things only gets worse when it appears the two NCS officers who took Carter to their station for questioning were actually imposters. With Deakin's rep in particular taking a major blow and the real NCS officers keen to make someone pay, the team are left scrambling to find their target and save the DI's career.