Cab Rank Cowboys

A local taxi firm, Crest Cabs, is suffering from a spate of car thefts. In each case, the firm receives a hoax call from a customer and when the driver arrives and gets out of the car, the thieves jump in and drive away. It is always the most expensive car that are targeted. The owner, Ray Watts, who is an old friend of Ken, wants help before the firm goes out of business.

Ken interviews the drivers, the dispatcher, Judy, and a local garage owner called John Blake who supplies and services the taxis. Blake thinks that the cars are probably being stolen to order, for shipment to the Third World. He doesn’t like Ken’s insinuations that he might be a suspect. Ken spends an evening driving with Frank, one of Ray’s drivers, studying how the company works. Frank isn’t aware of any enemies that Ray may have. They are called to pick up a fare at a warehouse late at night. Ken gets out to find the passenger and is attacked. Frank gets out to help Ken – and the thieves get in and steal the car. Judy tells Ken that Ray is a compulsive gambler. He is also making regular payments to Blake that don’t get entered in the books. Posing as a naïve and clueless woman in search of a new car, Laura goes to the garage and overhears Ray arguing with Blake. Later, Ken sees Blake and Judy together. He breaks into the garage and finds a file which makes it clear that it is Joey Wallis, one of Blake’s mechanics who has a criminal record, who is “ringing” the cars – giving them new identities. Blake returns and catches Ken red-handed, but soon admits that he knows Judy rather better than he was prepared to admit before: they had an affair and he is the father of her two-year-old daughter. He also suspects Joey. Ken becomes very suspicious that someone within the firm is providing the thieves with inside information. He decides to entice the thieves, using Harry’s Jaguar as bait. He plans to install a tracking device in the car, then spread the word that there’s a new driver with an expensive Jag, and wait for the thieves to strike. Harry is concerned about the fate of his beloved car and takes some convincing. However he can’t make the tracker work, so he has to change his plans – he wants Rocky to hide in the boot with a mobile phone. Rocky, not surprisingly, does not like the sound of this!

Having spread the word about the “new driver with an expensive Jag”, Ken sits back to wait for the thieves to take the bait. Before long he gets a call to pick up a fare from East Midlands Airport. The thieves steal the car and drive away, colliding with Laura’s car as they are making their escape. Harry and Laura try to follow, but in a clapped-out Renault they are no match for the thieves. Gavin and Mandy, the thieves, deliver the car to a garage underneath a railway arch in the centre of Nottingham, where Joey tells them that it is no use to him because of the damage caused by the collision. They take the car to a crushing plant, and it looks as if Rocky and the car will be crushed, but a worker at the yard hears Rocky’s shouts in time. Rocky contacts Ray with details of the garage. Judy overhears and realises that the game is up. She persuades Blake to give her some money so she can escape, but Ken walks in. Judy admits that she is the mole who has been supplying details to Joey, who is her boyfriend. Having thrown Ken off the scent by sending him to Joey’s flat, she goes to the garage to warn Joey. They are planning their escape when Ken and the police arrive, sirens wailing. Joey thinks that Judy has tipped them off. He manages to escape on foot but Judy gives herself up. Ray is devastated when he realises that he has been wrong to trust Judy, but takes comfort from the fact that his business is now safe.

Rocky has been feeling very unsettled and undervalued at work. He tells Ken that he is stuck in a rut and wants some excitement. Harry is considering buying some surveillance equipment such as night-vision goggles and bugging devices, but is horrified at the cost. While trying out a listening device, he overhears Rocky on the phone, making enquiries about emigrating to Australia. Laura and her flatmate, Hilary, find Rocky’s brochures. Then Laura disturbs Rocky while he is filling in his immigration application form. She is heartbroken that he is thinking of leaving but he is determined: “It’s a land of opportunity. I could make something of myself.”. Harry has a fatherly chat with him, but Rocky misunderstands and thinks that it is Harry who has a problem. Eventually Harry and Ken decide to make Rocky an offer he can’t refuse: they offer him a promotion as a junior partner with a share of the profits.

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1998

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48