Best Left Buried

CBS has been given the contract to guard a building site – a derelict church which is due to be demolished and replaced with luxury flats by a local builder, Donald Bannerman. During a violent thunderstorm, there is an earth movement and some ancient statues are uncovered. Dr Freda Butler, an archaeologist at the university, insists on being given access, saying that the statues date back to the time when there was a Cistercian monastery on the site. Bannerman refuses, but Ken decides to let her have a quick look at the statues while Bannerman isn’t there.

During the night, one of Bannerman’s JCBs is sabotaged when sand is poured in the fuel tank. Freda and her students are blamed. Bannerman threatens to hand over the security contract for guarding all his sites to Jack Fentiman, one of Harry’s rivals. Harry wants to sack Frank, the security guard who was on duty at the site. However Ken feels sorry for Frank, who is the rather simple brother of another CBS guard, Bertie, and insists on giving Frank a second chance. But then the following night the church is flooded when Frank turns on a water valve. Who is paying him to sabotage the site.

Bannerman carries out his threat and sacks CBS. The reputation of CBS is at stake and other clients start to cancel their contracts. Ken reluctantly sacks Frank, but suspects that he is being paid by Fentiman. He follows Frank to a pub where he sees him with DS McKinley, a local policeman and Fentiman’s security consultant. He overhears Frank asking McKinley for more money and later finds that Frank has been beaten up. Frank admits that he is responsible for the sabotage and that Fentiman and McKinley were threatening to reveal to Harry that he had been sacked from his previous job for running amok with a fork-lift truck.

Harry and Ken and determined to prove Fentiman’s and McKinley’s guilt and to restore the reputation of CBS. After consulting DS Hatchard, Ken’s friend on the police force, they decide to try a bit of entrapment. Bertie offers to tip off Fentiman that CBS will go out of business if anything else happens to damage their reputation and to suggest that Fentiman and McKinley plant a consignment of stolen VCRs in the CBS warehouse. That night, Bertie lets Fentiman and McKinley into the warehouse. The police storm the building and arrest Fentiman but McKinley escapes.

Feeling very foolish for being taken in by Fentiman, Bannerman gives CBS back the contract and also agrees to delay work on the church site for three months to let Freda complete her archaeological investigations. McKinley goes to the church, seeking revenge, but Frank turns up and knocks him out. Ken and Harry give him his job back.

Rocky has fallen in love with Trisha Downey, a chirpy young snooker player from Lancashire. She makes herself unpopular in the local snooker hall when she challenges other players to play for money: she plays badly to tempt them to raise their stakes, then when the stakes are high she beats them, taking all the money. Rocky persuades her to enter a local competition and makes sure that Mickey Tucker, a local talent-scout and manager, will be present. Tucker is duly impressed and signs up Trisha.

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1998

Page last modified: 03 November 2016, 16:09