Stamp Duty

Paul Booth is being tried in London for armed robbery. But Martin Mulholland, the chief defence witness and Booth’s alleged partner in crime, has disappeared and so cannot give Booth a much-needed (but completely false) alibi. The court case is adjourned while the defence lawyers search for Mulholland. Mrs Barratt, the senior partner in the defence team, approaches Harry for help in locating Mulholland and serving him with a witness summons: he is expected to come to Nottingham because both his grandmother and his girlfriend Naomi live there.

But Ken and Harry are not the only ones who are looking for Mulholland. Paul Booth’s estranged wife Stella and her big but brainless boyfriend Dougie want to find him because he has taken the proceeds of the robbery – all £200,000 of it. Stella doesn’t care that her husband will go to jail (quite the reverse!) but she wants the money. Mulholland has bought a set of rare and valuable stamps with the money and has sent them to his grandmother for her to keep safely until he can sell them to a local stamp dealer, Edwin Brett, thereby laundering the money.

Ken visits Mulholland’s gran and she tells him where Naomi lives. Naomi is a busty nymphomaniac platinum-blonde bimbo who “paints toenails for a living”. When Ken tries to serve the summons on Mulholland, he gets the door slammed in his face. Mulholland then flees with Naomi in her Jaguar; Ken follows but loses him. However a bit of subterfuge succeeds where Ken’s macho tactics have failed – Harry gets Laura to lure him to his grandmother’s house by pretending to be an old friend. She then casually gives him a present: the summons.

But CBS have only fulfilled part of Mrs Barratt’s instructions. They also need to watch Mulholland and make sure he turns up at the railway station so she can take him back to London. When Stella and Dougie arrive at Naomi’s flat and start threatening Mulholland while Ken is watching from outside, he and Ken escape on Ken’s motorbike. He demands that CBS protect him from Stella and Dougie. Ken draws the short straw and has to look after him at his house. But Mulholland is still after the stamps so he can sell them and disappear with the proceeds. He steals Ken’s bike and visits his grandmother, but she claims that she absent-mindedly left the stamps in her dressing gown... which is now in the washing machine! Ken and Rocky turn up, but so do Stella and Dougie who have traced the grandmother from an address on a receipt at Naomi’s flat. Stella kidnaps Mulholland, Ken and Rocky at gunpoint and demands the money. Mulholland pretends that it is hidden at a deserted farmhouse. They manage to escape from Stella’s car while she and Dougie are searching the house... unfortunately they are still handcuffed together!

After spending the night in a ditch, they ring Naomi to ask her to collect them. She leaves, hotly pursued by a convoy consisting of Stella’s car, Laura’s car and Harry’s car. But she gives them the slip at a level crossing by dodging round the barriers. Stella and Dougie are stranded on the other side, as are Laura and Harry. Just as the barriers are lifting, Naomi returns with Mulholland, Ken and Rocky, still handcuffed together. The chase is on again as Naomi takes them to a mad one-eyed blacksmith called Pugh so he can remove the handcuffs. Unfortunately Dougie and Stella end up in a haystack after their car leaves the road at a bend. Stella is furious but has to accept that she has lost Mulholland for good. Even at this late stage, Mulholland tries to make one final break for freedom once his cuffs have been removed, but in the ensuing scuffle Naomi accidentally hits him with a shovel, knocking him out!

And so Ken delivers Mulholland safely to the station and into Mrs Barratt’s custody, though he is not happy with Harry for lumbering him with such a tedious job. Meanwhile Mulholland’s grandmother retrieves the stamps that she had simply hidden in a vase and sells them herself to Edwin Brett, at a much higher price than Mulholland had originally agreed!

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1999

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48