Burning Ambition

Lorraine Simpson is a red-headed young teenager who has just been released from borstal after serving a sentence for arson. Why has she kept a newspaper cutting which announces Ken’s transition from fireman to private detective?

Fiona Harper, a guest at a nearby hotel, wants Ken to get evidence that her husband, Dennis, is having an affair. She tells him a sob-story about how he has moved his girlfriend into their house after kicking her out in to the street with only the clothes she is wearing. Ken, who can never resist a pretty damsel in distress, falls for this story hook, line and sinker. In fact “Fiona” is none other than Lorraine Simpson, who works at the hotel as a chambermaid. But it is a long time before Ken discovers this!

Ken watches the Harpers’ house and sees Harper with his “girlfriend” (who is really his wife, Sue). He agrees to help “Fiona” break into the house while the Harpers are out so she can reclaim her possessions. While there, she fakes evidence of a burglary and vandalises the house. Ken then takes her to the station. As she is about to catch her train, she gives him one of “her” necklaces that she took from the house, as a token of her appreciation for his help. Unknown to Ken, she gets straight off the train and, pretending to be a jeweller, tips off the police that a man has tried to sell her a necklace. Ken had been seen by a neighbour of the Harpers who described him to the police, so it is not long before he is arrested for the burglary. He has a hard time convincing them that “Fiona” even exists. He is just about to be charged when DS Hatchard, Ken’s friend whose help Harry has enlisted, intervenes.

It turns out that Lorraine is Dennis Harper’s daughter from a time before he married Sue when he was living with Liz Simpson. Five years earlier, in 1985, Harper’s warehouse in Birmingham had caught fire. Ken helped to put out the fire but one of his friends, Andy Blake, was killed. The arsonist, whom Ken caught on the premises, was Lorraine. Sue doesn’t even know that Lorraine exists or that the fire was arson. Now Lorraine is getting her own back, firstly on Ken whose evidence convicted her and secondly on the father that had deserted her and her mother without even giving them a share of his profits from the fire.

Harry is approached by an elderly man, Len Drumgold, who wants to rent some space in Harry’s warehouse to store some furs for a few days. The “furs” turn out to be rabbits. When Harry challenges him about this, Drumgold claims that they are about to be shipped to Belgium for breeding. However Harry, Laura and Rocky discover that they are really destined for clinical trials and cosmetic testing. A neighbour calls the RSPCA so Harry impounds the rabbits and takes them to a children’s farm.

The fireman who died is referred to here as Andy Blake. However when Ken helps his widow Sally in “The Sharp End” (Series 7), his first name has become Jim!

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1998

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48