Thieves Like Us

CBS are employed to go undercover in order to solve a jewellery theft from a hotel strongroom. Max Cone, the fiancé of the owner’s daughter, was imprisoned for the theft. However the daughter, Claire Walters, and her father, Jeremy Walters, are convinced of his innocence and suspect the hotel’s manager, Bruce Aurit and the head of security, Mike Puckett.

Ken and Harry “sack” all the staff of CBS and put the office up for “sale”. They then use Lennie, one of the disgruntled “sacked” employees, to inform Bruce and Mike that the company is in a very dodgy financial state and that Ken and Harry are planning to raid the safe. Alex and Rocky go to work at the hotel: Alex becomes ‘Julia’, a chambermaid, and Rocky becomes ‘Sandy’, a porter. Ken and Harry check in to the hotel as ‘Kenneth Smith’ and ‘Henry Jones’ (!), businessmen who want to organise a conference.

Ken and Harry drug Bruce to give Alex chance to steal his key to the safe (in doing so, she displays another of her many talents: cat burglary). Alex then befriends Mike in an attempt to steal his key. Mike catches Ken and Harry searching his room and demands to be included in the plan as the price of his silence. Bruce and Mike each try to outsmart the other so as to make off with all the money. After calling the police and advising Ken and Harry to escape while they can, Bruce steals the contents of the safe but is recorded doing so by the strongroom security cameras. Mike challenges Bruce, and demands his share of both this and the previous robbery. The two men are caught red-handed trying to hide the jewels in the office safe until the police have gone. Detective Inspector Lytell remarks: “Hell of a way to prove your point, Ken!”

The case of the Claire’s fiancé, Max, is reopened and the episode ends with everyone celebrating over dinner.

It is not known why this episode, which had the same title sequence as Series 7, was broadcast three years later, and why it was described by the continuity announcer as “a one-off-special”. It was evidently intended to be broadcast before “Shot in The Dark”, since no mention is made either of the growing romance between Ken and Alex or the (presumed) engagement of Harry and Mary O’Haren, both of which featured extensively in “Shot in The Dark”. It is left to the viewer’s imagination to picture Ken and Alex as they might be now, with children who have long blonde hair, craggy faces and croaky but very posh voices!

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1998

Page last modified: 14 June 2012, 17:00