#04x42

TW: Rape

Christine travels to work and finds a car that has crashed into a lamppost. She pulls over to help and fights to free the man trapped inside the smoke-filled car that is on fire. She helps him escape through the window and tells him she'll call an ambulance. He insists he doesn't want to go to the hospital and assaults her when she says she's a police officer before legging it. Seconds later the car explodes.

Bob and Derek discuss Reg's attempt to question all the staff about stress for a Federation questionnaire. Bob reckons Derek's stress level must be alright because he doesn't have to suffer Reg.

Reg corners Pete and asks him how stressful he'd find being taken hostage by a terrorist. "Meh." He asks how stressful he finds delivering death messages and Pete points out that that isn't stressful, stress is a constant not an 'every so often'. He then asks him about accepting bribes and Pete offers to 'stress Reg's head' if he doesn't leave it. During this conversation, Christine stalks past them and is visibly stressed 🤣 (understandably!) "Having a complaint made against you? Being caught making a mistake?" Pete is distracted by a blonde ringing the bell for the front desk. "Tasty crumpet on the wrong side of the desk?" he smirks. Reg sighs. "I'll put you down as thwarted ambitions, mate." he mutters, lifting his clipboard.

Pete lets the blonde inside the station and she nervously asks for a female officer. Pete switches on the charm and asks what is wrong with him. "... I've just been raped." she said quietly.

Christine gives Tom the registration of the car, acknowledging that it's likely to have been stolen. He suggests she go to casualty and she insists she can't because she's running late, has a hell of a day, and needs to get on. He tells her not to come running to him if she dies later and that she'd send anyone else it happened to to hospital. She asks him to stop fussing. Reg claims that Christine likely has PTSD. "I haven't got one of those yet, other than you Sarge." he says, gesturing to his clipboard. Tom tells him he doesn't suffer from stress as he practices Yoga. What he does suffer from is an aching gut and the proximity of Reg's office.

Pete asks Christine where to put the victim he spoke to. She asks him to give her a minute to change and then to bring the woman - and a WPC - into her office.

Mike is dealing with an old lady who tackled some would-be muggers on motorbikes. She shoved their bike over and caused them to panic before escaping. Mike asks if she got their registration but she didn't. "I was too busy hitting them! Little S O D's, they don't frighten me!" Mike thinks they're likely to try again on the south side of the road they tried that morning as they got nothing. He wants to ask Traffic if they'll help them out and reminds Frank that their boss is a friend of his so asks him to contact him and arrange it.

Christine speaks to the rape victim and tells her she's going to ask her a few questions and then take her over the river to a rape center for samples to be taken. The victim says she hasn't got time to go to the rape center as she's a nurse and is expected at work that afternoon. Christine then has to lead the victim to the FME's office through a busy (male-filled) Custody and past 2 drunk old men who openly stare at her. The FME welcomes her and explains what she's going to do as Christine leaves her with her and keeps Suzanne (still an uncredited extra at this point) on watch outside. Frank asks Christine how things are going and she claims it's 10-nil to humiliation for the poor girl. 'Questioned in this hole, taken through Custody to be leered at and examined in the surgeon's room like a criminal.' Frank asks if she's a genuine victim and Christine tells him she thinks she is. He then asks if she'll arrange uniform help for Mike's operation including a decoy. Christine is visibly uncomfortable where she was kicked in the stomach but tells him she's fine and gives him June for the afternoon to act as decoy for the muggers.

Derek and Charles discuss Ted and Christine. Derek claims it's only rumour so far. Brownlow remains surprised Christine would look twice at Ted. Derek considers that Ted isn't interested in Christine as a female but more her rank. They both consider that Ted will leap on anything that moves so there's likely some background to it. Charles claims women in the force is the one thing they don't get right. Either way, one will have to move to another division if it's true. Derek says he has Ted prepared to come and see him as soon as he arrives.

June is on patrol and checking out motorbikes before she spots a woman staggering slightly whilst pushing a pushchair. She asks her if she's ok and it becomes quickly obvious she's absolutely steaming drunk despite claiming she doesn't drink and it's cough medicine that's done it. When she stumbles and falls over, she lets go of the buggy and it almost rolls towards the road. June arrests her.

Frank and Christine speak to the rape victim, Maria. She's adamant she doesn't know the man and has never seen him before - not even at the hospital. Frank apologises for putting her through it again but explains it's important they get it straight whilst it's fresh in her mind so they can look into it for her. He asks if there's anything she can remember that she hasn't told them. One of his nostrils was noticeably bigger than the other.

Tosh and Robin make fun of Reg and his questionnaire as Frank searches through Reg's files. As Robin tries to ask Reg to take up his compensatory leave with Christine, Frank shouts out that he's found the man he suspects of raping Marie and he has previous of sexual offences too. Reg pisses him off by telling him he doesn't know where he's moved since his last known address. He goes to show the picture to Marie and she's adamant that he is the man who raped her so they go to the hospital to try to obtain the most recent address.

June tries to ask Christine what she should do about the woman who she arrested. Christine reminds her she is the arresting officer so should sort it with the Custody Sgt and then head up to CID.

Tony tries to offload the baby onto June so he can go and work on the motorbike mugging case but she refuses as she's been asked to go work with CID as a decoy. Tony takes his chance and thrusts him onto Robin before running away. "... But we're not having kids!"

The doctor he speaks to at the psychiatric hospital offers to look into whether or not he can disclose the address with his case team and will get back to him in a couple of hours.

The drunken mother is locked into a cell whilst they check everything is alright at home. She claims she was going to be taken to Greenwich by her boyfriend who she met in a pub that afternoon.

Frank storms back into the station with Tosh at his heels. He threatens Tosh that he'll make sure his family ends at just 5 kids if he tells him to calm down again. Tosh reasons that 2 hours is nothing in the scheme of a case and is often more when they have to investigate from scratch. "Will you shut up being reasonable?"

Reg has an address for Frank after phoning around. You could say he's grateful...

Ted finally arrives to see Derek. He wants to speak to him about overtime but Derek cuts in and tells him he's there to speak about Christine and the long and short of it is whatever is happening has just been stopped. Ted is fuming and demands to know where he got his information from. Derek says his colleagues aren't as discreet as he thought and that he'd also given himself away with furtive meetings in corridors and waiting by her office frequently. He warns him not to make it more difficult. Ted snaps that nothing is going on and Derek warns him to keep it that way or he'll get moved, not Christine. Ted storms out, slamming the door behind him.

Mike is following his bikers and reports their location. Units arrange to move in on them so he hopes that they will finally be able to stop them.

Ted goes straight to Christine who tells him that she doesn't need more stress for today and asks him to wait. He follows her into her office. "What are you trying to do to me?" he demands, pointing out they've had a few drinks and a night out that has now become hot news around the station. He insists it didn't come from him so she must have put it around. She tells him to grow up and that she won't be making the mistake of going out with him again. She says she's already told him to forget it and wants to keep everything professional. "Thanks a bunch. Ma'am." he snaps, storming out.

June tenses as she walks along the street, hearing the motorbikes behind her. They grab her bag and she fights back before they knock her down and escape. Immediately a Traffic Division motorbike pulls out to follow them with a second joining the pursuit alongside Mike. The muggers escape into a park with Mike and the panda going around the outside to the exit. One of the traffic officers falls off his bike but the other continues the chase until Mike pulls out in front of him and causes him to break suddenly and fall off his bike!

Frank turns up outside his suspect's flat and his flatmate claims he's gone out. He and Tosh move in to check the flat over as his flatmate says he had a phone call 10 minutes ago and left with some belongings so might not ever come back.

Robin asks Reg if he's spoken to Frazer about his leave yet. "Ah, your maternity leave?"

Frank storms into the psychiatrist's office, telling him that someone in the hospital tipped him off. The psych says he doesn't condone it but someone likely told him to run away for the best motives but no one would admit it. "Nick 'em and bin 'em. That's how it goes isn't it?"

Mike tells Jim what happened and admits it's likely it was his fault that the muggers got away and that he should have let traffic pursue them. He's not looking forward to seeing June however...

Ted storms in and accuses Mike and Jim of telling Conway about Christine. Frank enters and says he doesn't know anything about it, none of them do. He warns him he's not in the mood to argue with him today and orders Mike into his office to explain himself.

"I'll find out." Ted growls at Mike.