Episode
The Bill: Soft Talking
Overview
Responding to an urgent call for assistance, Smithy arrives and has to deliver a baby in the street. Worried about the mother's condition, he investigates her background, and discovers a history of prostitution and drug abuse. When she vanishes from the hospital and abandons her newborn baby, Smithy has no choice but to inform her father, who subsequently reveals that he and his wife will be adopting the baby and bringing it up as their own. Smithy enlists the mother's help to catch her pimp, who is also dealing drugs in the process, by setting up an obbo to catch him in the act. However, the obbo goes badly wrong when the girl makes off with the drugs and tries selling them herself to local users.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 16
- Episode
- Episode 43
- Air date
- 2000-06-13
Episode context
Soft Talking is Episode 43 in Season 16 of The Bill. It aired on 2000-06-13.
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Episode 42: Room Service
Stanton is desperate to be discharged from the Beech case due to her love for Boulton, but Hodges assures her she is doing well. Boulton accepts a free night at a plush Docklands hotel, and invites Stanton to join him. Sure enough, as the pair settle down for their evening of luxury, an assault and robbery at the hotel sees Sun Hill officers arrive to investigate, and their night is ruined. The next day, CID investigates the theft of a laptop computer, and Beech is intrigued by reports of a "mystery blonde" sighted fleeing from the hotel. Horrified that Beech could have discovered their affair, Boulton and Stanton send Beech to the other side of London on a wild goose chase while they solve the case themselves.
Episode 44: Beyond Conviction
Klein and Hagen are called to a stabbing at a shopping centre, where a foreign aid worker has been attacked and left for dead. Initially, suspicion falls on a local youth, Wayne Stevens, who has previous for similar offences and was seen running away from the scene. However, when another witness claims she heard the victim shouting something before she was attacked, the pair find themselves on the trail of a Rwandan war criminal, Colonel Augustus Ngeze, who is wanted for mass genocide and rape by the UN. Klein's personal views begin to cloud his judgement when they fail to obtain any evidence to prove Ngeze's identity, so he sets up a chance meeting with a Rwandan national in an attempt to identify him.
More episodes from this season
Episode 41: The Deep Blue Sea
With Leroy Jones being held captive by rival dealer Touissant, Rickman is sent to make a second purchase from the syndicate. Rickman tails her contact to a tower block in the city, where Touissant's crew burst in and shoot the ringleader of "The Syndicate" and Rickman's contact. When Jones is ordered to kill Toussaint's main rival, Nathan Clarke, Rickman finds she has fallen for Jones and confesses her love and status as a police officer. When he abandons her, she goes back to Sun Hill before getting into Touissant's so SO19 can conduct a raid. With Jones a surprise member of the group, Rickman warns him to leave, but she finds herself as a hostage for a vengeful Touissant when SO19 storm in.
Episode 45: Whispers
Proctor, under pressure over his poor performance, decides to trap a burglar to avoid being transferred from Sun Hill after being told by Deakin that he has a new job lined up for him at the Isleworth CSU, who are looking for a DC to investigate domestic violence. Proctor's hospital interrogation of the victim nearly results in the man's death and a bust up between his wife and his secret girlfriend. Proctor goes undercover with Page in an attempt to catch the culprit, but a jealous Quinnan, leaves the obbo, and Proctor's Sun Hill career in tatters. Meanwhile, when Hagen hears an Area Car crash on the main set, her investigation uncovers the car being chased by the officers wasn't the only vehicle involved in the crash. Things escalate when one of the officers involved in the crash dies.
Episode 40: The Hare & The Hounds
To finance his buy-in to the Yardie drug dealing operation, Jones and his gang rob a building society, with Rickman forced to be getaway driver. Despite Trident being tipped off, the relief are left lying in wait for them at the wrong bank when Jones spots a cash in-transit van, with a special constable who tries to disarm Rickman being seriously injured. The relief buzzes with rumours that Rickman has "gone native", and she finds loyalties torn as she gets close to her target. However, she is given a harsh reality check when Jones is kidnapped by rival gang leader Touissant - who gives her an ultimatum.
Episode 46: Caught Short
Boulton is determined to bring down a known drug dealer by using his wife as an informant to gather information. However, when a raid on his property goes pear shaped, Boulton is less than pleased. When broker Neil Ramsey is discovered to be part of the scam, Lennox's loyalties are tested when he discovers that Ramsey is one of his wife's business associates. Lennox attempts to gain Webb's silence in order to protect his wife, but Boulton soon gets wind of what is going on and threatens that Lennox could lose his job if he tries to intervene. Lennox is forced to make a tough decision when he has Ramsey in his clutches – let him go and his wife is off the hook, or arrest him, and she is in deep trouble.
Episode 39: A Sprat To Catch A Mackerel
When an apparent drug-related murder leads Operation Trident onto Sun Hill's patch, they suspect Yardie street gangs could be active in the area. A new scheme by Conway to encourage taxi drivers to help the police bears fruit when an overzealous cabbie brings a 'prisoner', Wesley Carter, to the station, saying he heard him making a drug deal. When Carter is linked to gangster Leroy Jones, Trident get Rickman to go undercover. As they reunite, Jones admits there are Yardies operating on the patch and he is trying to take on their drug running operation - but that a rival firm is trying to stop him - leaving Rickman caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting.
Episode 47: Bad Habits
Ch. Insp. Conway is astounded when an elderly man (and former police officer) turns up at the station with a suitcase containing half a million pounds, which he claims he found on the street. As PC Rickman counts the money, Conway decides to do some digging, as surely no-one could be that honest.
Episode 38: Going Public
Webb investigates the brutal beating of businessman Kevin Hewlitt, who is found unconscious in his kitchen by his wife, Sandra. The investigation provides little information as to the motive for the attack, and very little description of the assailant is given by those who saw him. CCTV footage shows Sandra having intercourse with another man in her car a week before Kevin's attack, and she later admits to Webb that she and her husband were no longer in love. Lennox tries to break the alibi of Hewlitt's business partner Paul Wilcox, convinced that he is somehow involved in the attack. Webb makes the decision to mix business with pleasure as he begins to fall for Sandra.
Episode 48: Say It With Flowers
Glaze and Holmes investigate the apparent suicide of local councillor Anthony Snape, and uncover a plot involving two other councillors, Colin Cooper and Steven Trent, to pervert the course of justice by ensuring that massage parlours with links to the local freemasons' lodge are not raided. Glaze treads very close to the edge as he becomes determined to prove Brownlow is bent, as he is a member of the same lodge; even leaking information to a journalist who prints the story on his front page. When Glaze enlists Cooper's daughter as his star witness, it is soon discovered that Snape may not have committed suicide after all, and may be the victim of a very carefully planned and executed murder.
Episode 37: Love Or Money
Boulton and Holmes are left to pick up the pieces when the key witnesses in a robbery case refuse to give evidence. Holmes notices Boulton's change of attitude and suspects he may have found himself a woman. As word gets around the relief, Stanton attempts to cool things off with Boulton, which leaves him devastated. Meanwhile, Stanton's suspicions about Beech increase after she discovers his involvement with a credit card thief, Billy Bullock. Bullock pays Beech £1000 to destroy a CCTV tape of him stealing credit cards from a hotel conference. When Smithy and Hagen pursue Bullock, Beech's cover is nearly blown. When Bullock goes to make the drop, Stanton follows with the hope of catching Beech.
Episode 49: No One's That Honest
Conway is astounded when an elderly man, Charles Arthur Cullen, a former police officer, turns up at the station with a suitcase containing half a million pounds, which he claims to have found on the street. Conway asks Hollis to count the money independently but he only manages to count £499,920. As Rickman counts the money again, Conway decides to do some digging, as surely no-one could be that honest. He discovers that the land on which the money was found has recently changed hands, and is now in possession of the Met. As the scam begins to show all of its true colours, Conway attempts to bargain with Cullen in order to get a deal which suits the both of them just perfectly.