Episode
The Bill: Lead On A Merry Chase
Overview
The Alvarez case takes a sinister turn when Eva Garcia's brother turns up at the safehouse. Nadir persists on trying to talk Shaw out of the drug deal, but she refuses. When Garcia's brother is severely beaten whilst confronting Alvarez, the sting looks compromised, with Eva doing a runner from the safehouse after locking Harman in a room. Leaving for her holiday in Tenerife, Harman clashes with Fletcher when he decides not to come, but her journey home throws her right back into work when she finds Eva roaming the streets. Her attempts to lull her back to Sun Hill leads to both women being abducted, and a call from Haskew demanding Nadir at Bar Morocco quickly follows; has he been rumbled? Meanwhile, Perkins investigates a string of robberies involving lone businessmen staying at private hotels, and Hardy finds himself reprimanded by Wright for being heavily hungover at work.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 23
- Episode
- Episode 7
- Air date
- 2007-01-24
Episode context
Lead On A Merry Chase is Episode 7 in Series 23 of The Bill. It aired on 2007-01-24.
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Episode 6: A Week From Next Tuesday
Nadir gets two shocks on his return from holidays as Haskew decides he doesn't need Nadir onside, while SOCA stun him by revealing they know the Colombian deal is happening a month ahead of the time he told them. Using it to his advantage, he gets back in by relaying the info to Haskew. Nadir suggests giving a dummy location for the drop, but his plan could be compromised when he tells barman Chez Williams that he was undercover when Chez introduced him to Kristen. Furious, Chez refuses to follow Nadir's request - can he persuade him he is bent now when he wasn't before? Elsewhere in Alvarez case, Harman is assigned to a safehouse with drugs mule Eva Garcia, but her relationship hits the rocks when she suggests taking a holiday with a reluctant Fletcher. In CID, Hunter and Turner clash yet again over the suspects in a hammer attack. Turner believes an ex-con is involved, but Hunter believes the woman's son is responsible.
Episode 8: School Of Hard Knocks
With a gun to Harman and another on him, Nadir is forced to admit he is undercover. As Haskew, Shaw and Nadir dispute on whether or not Nadir is actually bent, Alvarez silences the room by shooting informant Eva Garcia. As Haskew drags Harman and Nadir to the drug deal, Nadir explains all to Harman, leaving her disgusted. With SOCA at the wrong location, the lorry is intercepted with it continuing in the wrong direction, but it is a bust. Nadir proves to Alvarez that the police are going to the wrong place to regain his trust, but he loses Haskew's when he tries to shoot him in attempt to stop Haskew killing Harman. A heart to heart between Nadir and Shaw sees them decide to elope with the cash, but not before CO19 storm the deal and engage in a firefight. As bullets fly and bodies drop, the Sun Hill team are left looking for their own in the casualties.
More episodes from this season
Episode 5: An Article Of Faith
Panic and speculation swirls around Sun Hill as Heaton reveals the station may be about to close. Hobbs is left furious at the discovery, but Heaton insist the team needed to know before a press leak; Gold, who was notified ahead of time, suspects the super may know more than he's letting on. The suicide of a young mother leads to a loansharking ring targeting vulnerable mothers, so Harman is sent in undercover as a single mother, accompanied by Wright's young nephew. An arrest leads to a sting to catch the kingpin behind the loansharking, but Webb is furious when the deceased mother's ex wades in and blows the OBBO, leaving Heaton to intervene in an attempt to force a confession. Elsewhere, Valentine helps an old friend when his pub is allegedly raided by a man in a chicken outfit, but Roger is disappointed to discover the culprit may be closer to home.
Episode 9: Burn Off
Nadir awakes from a living nightmare to discover Jose Alvarez is in custody and Paul Haskew was killed in the firefight. He returns home to discover Shaw made it out of the bust in one piece, but both break down over the death of Harman. With Alvarez keeping quiet, Nadir thinks he's in the clear, until he hears a body was found in the water after the raid; has Harman been found? Alvarez hints at what Nadir has done, but the comment about betrayal makes Heaton and Meadows send Nadir into a safehouse. Meanwhile, Keane and Hardy investigate a burglary and discover that the homeowners were gassed with Nitrous Oxide before being ransacked. Their prime suspect is their former nanny, fired for having an affair with the husband, but his constant arguing with his wife impedes Keane and Hardy's attempts to get to the bottom of the case.
Episode 4: Two Time Loser
Gold and Valentine find a parole officer assaulted and locked in the boot of his car, but the victim may just be a suspect in another crime when his assailant claims he raped his incarcerated wife. Nixon and Masters discover he has been offering sex in exchange for parole, but their investigation takes a dark turn when one of the prisoners attempts suicide. Meanwhile, Hardy witnesses a mugging on his way into work, but discovers that the alleged victim may be heading up a scam exchanging cash for passing marks on the British Citizenship test. After getting injured twice, Hardy takes a shine to St. Hugh’s nurse Tash Niles, who later suggests he moves in with her after the departure of his grandmother to Jamaica.
Episode 10: Dead Man's Hand: Part I
Nadir comes back to work in a relieved state after Meadows all but admits defeat in their search for Kristen Shaw. However, he is brought back to earth with a bump when Gold reports Harman missing to Meadows, with her last phone call coming on the day Eva Garcia disappeared. Tracking down Shaw, Nadir and his lover execute a plan to plant a lookalike on Harman's flight to Tenerife, but the Sun Hill team aren't fooled when they find the CCTV. With phone signals pinging at Bonham Wharf, Nadir panics that he is about to be caught and plans to flee. Keane and Hardy find a heavily pregnant female at the bottom of a flight of stairs after an apparent burglary, but it appears her partner may be implicated when it is revealed her stolen watch was originally stolen in another burglary, involving Heaton's estranged wife Rhiannon.
Episode 3: The New Generation
Nixon and Turner's quest to discover the identity of the serial arsonist takes an interesting turn when they discover that Jay Henderson's ex-girlfriend, Cheryl Wilkes, who claims to be pregnant with his baby, has links to all three of the locations where fires took place – the first being her childhood home, and the second being a foster home where she was placed while she was in care. Elsewhere, Smith and Walker investigate after a seemingly minor spat between a market trader and a customer leads to an assault on the customer's heavily pregnant wife, but would the market trader go so far to attack her in retaliation? Smithy asks Walker if she wants to move in after struggling to find a place to live, while Nixon tells Turner and Hunter she'll be the new DI.
Episode 11: Dead Man's Hand: Part II
With Harman's body found and Nadir in custody, MIT swoop in to investigate. Meadows tries to think the best of Nadir and allows him to go home and get changed, but lives to regret it when Nadir slips surveillance, just as DNA proves he was at the scene. He heads off to meet Shaw, but begins to change his mind when he discovers Shaw still has the gun that killed Harman. With MIT and CID trying to track down the runaway lovers, Zain is left battling his conscious. Fletcher struggles to cope when Harman's mother asks to see him, finally accepting that he took her for granted. Elsewhere, Keane's emotions over Honey and another fight with Matt sees her lose her cool with a pair of bickering sisters when their father has angina attack, caused by their fight over a missing family heirloom.
Episode 2: Till Hell Freezes Over
CID begin the investigation into the arson attack on the home of lottery winning family the Hendersons. Manson discovers that the fire started in identical fashion to two previous fires investigated by Nixon and Turner, at a foster home and a B&B. Warren Pritchard, the man jailed for the previous two fires, is re-arrested after the team discovers he was bailed at trial. Further digging clears him, not only from the Henderson fire, but the previous two, leaving CID back at square one. In uniform, Smithy leads the troops on a search for the car involved in Rod Jessop's hit and run, and it's not long before CCTV footage puts truant Kyle Henderson in the frame for the attack. However, with his brother watching his every move, Stamp and Hollis try to trip up a friend of Kyle's into exposing the truant's involvement. Meanwhile, Meadows and Heaton interview candidates for the new DI post, but Meadows tries to persuade Nixon to apply.
Episode 12: The Good Old Days
Ackland and fiancee Rod Jessop work together when Valentine and Casper find a pupil from Harvey Wallace school, Martin Clarke, with stab wounds. Noble is frustrated when Hollis' stomach ache keeps him indoors looking at CCTV into the theft of bandages. Meanwhile, Gold and Smith attempt to locate a missing prisoner, Jimmy Collins. All three cases collide when it appears that Collins has a link to prime stabbing suspect Tom Ryan, while Hollis spots Collins on CCTV stealing bandages. Ackland stuns Jessop by suggesting early retirement.
Episode 1: Games of War
PCs Valentine and Casper arrest a man for being drunk-in-charge. DI Manson and Sgt Doug Wright mount a frantic search for a missing eleven-year-old boy. Sgt Ackland and PC Fletcher attend to an incident of vandalism at Harvey Wallace comprehensive. Ackland's boyfriend is knocked down in a hit-and-run incident.
Episode 14: The Bill Season 23 Episode 14