Shoestring

Seasons

1979

UK

7.5

Lighthearted detective series set in the West Country, about radio-phone-in detective Eddie Shoestring.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Private Ear

Call-girl Sarah Marshall kills herself on a beach, after stealing the car belonging to a man she had tried to contact, David Carn, popular DJ with Bristol radio station Radio West. Station boss Don Satchley asks private detective Eddie Shoestring to investigate any incriminating links between Carn and Sarah. Eddie is approached by a man named Willis, who tries to buy him off and is then beaten up by Willis's boss Barry Hendry. It is clear to Eddie that they are protecting one of Sarah's clients - not David Carn - and he must find out who.

S1 • E2

Knock for Knock

Eddie is now Radio West's 'Private Ear', accepting sleuthing work for listeners. His first client is Claire Stevens, whose husband was killed in a hit and run by drivers of a white van. A tip-off leads Eddie to a duo of young fraudsters who go 'on the knock', buying antique furniture from gullible elderly people at less than the real value. After an encounter with a glamorous antiques dealer, who may be holding back information, the result of a radio appeal leads Eddie to a muddy confrontation with the 'knockers'.

S1 • E3

Higher Ground

Higher Ground, a boarding school run by strict ex-Army major Hansford and his wife Jean, is being plagued by sadistic, sick stunts but Hansford refuses to call in the police, so Jean employs Eddie. Hansford, however, is wholly uncooperative. Jean tells Eddie that Hansford has a son, Rodney, by his first wife Betty. Betty committed suicide and Rodney was recently discharged from the same psychiatric hospital where Eddie was once a patient. Jean is killed but Rodney denies any involvement. Then Eddie learns of another possible suspect and also the reason why Hansford has resisted any contact with the law.

S1 • E4

An Uncertain Circle

Marion Cutler asks Eddie to trace her boyfriend, Nick Forrest, who has disappeared from the coastal caravan park where he was staying, though Steve the owner denies all knowledge of Forrest. Eddie learns that Forrest was both a pilot and photographer and had chartered a plane to take aerial photos of the coast, sending the negatives to Marion. The concentration is on a disused fort and a 'circle' where a plane carrying drugs crashed into the sea. Eddie, the villains and two undercover cops all meet for a shoot-out on the fort.

S1 • E5

Listen to Me

Adamant that her husband Harry was wrongly jailed for killing a shop assistant during a jeweller's shop robbery, Mel Shepherd threatens to jump from Radio West's roof unless Eddie finds the real murderer. Eddie approaches the arresting officer who points him towards a variety of other likely suspects. Ultimately he comes to discover that the victim was not shot in line with a robbery but was killed for a wholly different motive.

S1 • E6

Nine Tenths of the Law

Mary Phillips asks for Eddie's help after her ex-husband Dennis snatches their little daughter June, a ward of court, with a view to taking her back to Australia with him. After hearing Eddie's radio appeal Dennis and June go on the run. With the police disapproving of his involvement Eddie's work is not helped when Mary's ebullient father Tom insists on interfering in the case. Eddie also notes that Mary is a hard drinker and, given June's own choice to stay with her father, he wonders whether she might be better off with Dennis. Sometimes, however, what is right and what is the law do not coincide, as Eddie learns.

S1 • E7

The Link-Up

After Molly Tasker, director of a local women's refuge, accuses Radio West of ignoring domestic violence, Eddie investigates why the late Jackie Craig, whose wife is in the hostel, was unaccountably wealthy when he drowned. Eddie traces Craig's belongings to his ex-employer Jimmy Colefax, who is sailing round the world and whose wife Val is providing a daily link-up with him on the radio. However, a local radio ham alerts Eddie to the fact that Jimmy is apparently broadcasting from a nearby location, rather than thousands of miles away. He may be a fraud but is he also a murderer?

S1 • E8

Stamp Duty

Stamp dealer Joss Hargreaves collapses and dies whilst being bundled into a car by heavies working for Strickland, a corrupt businessman whom Eddie is trying to expose. Milkman Andy Stapleton witnesses everything but is spotted by the heavies and goes on the run, having told Eddie. Knowing Andy's reputation as a liar when they were psychiatric patients together, Eddie is unconvinced until he himself is attacked and thrown from a car. Having discovered Hargreaves' double life and his connection with Strickland, Eddie sets a trap.

S1 • E9

Find the Lady

Rock singer Toola asks Eddie to dissuade her sacked bass player Mole from his belief that his beauty queen girlfriend Chrissie was killed out of jealousy by the band's manager, Malcolm Kenrick. Mole is persistent despite a beach photographer showing Eddie a recent picture of Chrissie and the lady herself. When Mole is killed, apparently the victim of a drug overdose, Eddie sees that he stumbled on something Kenrick wished to keep quiet and that he was right in his accusation.

S1 • E10

The Partnership

Sonia, the Radio West receptionist, is concerned for her friend, travel agent Jenny Kelson, whom she sees apparently being threatened by a young man. Eddie photographs and follows him, leading to a remote country house owned by a couple of dog breeders. Eddie discovers that they are burglars, tipped off by Jenny as to when householders will be on holiday and their homes empty. Jenny confesses she got involved to help finance her husband, a struggling artist with an upcoming exhibition. Eddie offers her a deal.

S1 • E11

I'm a Believer

When Maddy Hopkins joins religious cult the Starshiners, her anxious mother, convinced that the group is out to get her trust fund money from her twenty-first birthday, asks Eddie to investigate. Maddy will hear nothing said against the group but Eddie suspects a racket and digs into their background, meeting the apparently sincere cult founder Stephen Steele. However, forging an uneasy alliance with Radio West news reporter Felicity Lamb, Eddie sets out to expose a conspiracy involving several interested parties.