Professional Detachment?

Alison Newman (Detective Sergeant Madeley)

An abomination against the queen. No, not a re-issue of the Sex Pistols debut single, but the shepherd’s hut Eddie’s built for Lynda. Her main objection continues to be the shiny metal chimney cowl sticking out of the top and Ed suggests painting it black. He calls Lynda and does his best to sweet-talk her into having the hut delivered, and he and Eddie waste no time getting it positioned in her garden. While still not completely convinced, Lynda seems happy for it to stay, if not to pay, and Eddie promises to come back for the ‘finishing touches’.

There was a brief but potentially significant aside between Eddie and Ed with mention of George’s new watch. Too expensive to have been bought with just his birthday money, he told Ed that he’d been saving up his pocket money too. I think there’s more to be revealed on that one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t heard the last of the tale of the church money.

As expected, Brian’s supporting Adam’s no-till farming proposal and gives him some pointers on how to win over the rest of the board. He needn’t have worried as the board agree the plan. After the meeting, Justin expresses concern about the stabbing to Brian, but only because it might be bad for business. Both he and Brian still seems to hold Rob in high esteem, with Justin remarking that the village can ill-afford to lose someone of Rob’s calibre.

Still unemployed and homeless, Jazzer’s sleeping on Fallon’s sofa – that’s when he’s not in The Bull, all sad and lonely, nursing a pint (there’s obviously no Wetherspoons in Ambridge). I don’t think there’s going to be better news anytime soon for Jazzer, as Jim seems reluctant to take his former houseguest back in once the repairs to Greenacres are complete.

And now all too briefly to Helen. Anna Tregorran tries to get her to talk about what happened the evening she stabbed Rob. Helen starts talking about the fact that she had to protect Henry and keep him safe, but she’s obviously still very distressed and confused and not fit to answer any questions. However, Anna’s detected an inner strength in Helen and is confident they can make progress. High hopes then for next week, when I hope to see her defence case start to come together.

Rob may be lucky to be alive, but the first time we hear him he’s as objectionable as ever. You’d have thought he’d have some humility knowing that he’d driven Helen to the edge of insanity, actually given her the knife she used to stab him, and then been brought back from the brink. At Rob’s request Pat and Tony take Henry to the hospital to see him and Pat gets to talk to Rob alone. She asks him if he wants to pass a message onto Helen and this causes Rob to cry - just as Ursula appears. She asks Pat to leave and says that in future she will bring ‘the child’ to see Rob. At least it sounds like Pat’s starting to look for signs that Tom and Kirsty might be right about Rob after all.

Back to Lynda’s garden, and it’s not long before she’s on the phone complaining. The bed’s collapsed and no wonder - it was little more than a pasting table. Eddie tries to say he’s busy, but as she hasn’t paid him yet he has no choice but to get round there, assisted by 94-year old Joe, to rebuild the bed using ‘original Victorian timber’. For some reason Lynda rejects Eddie’s offer to test its strength by bouncing up and down with her. He’s brought his tin of black paint round too so that he can paint the shiny cowl on top of the chimney that’s Lynda thinks is ruining the ambiance: “we’ll have that ambiance fixed in no time”.

There’s less reluctance from Lilian and Justin to bounce up and down on a bed together when choosing furniture for The Dower House. From the sound of it, it must have been quite a session as Justin sounds exhausted – and in the middle of Underwoods too! Lilian dissuades him from buying everything there and then, and leads him back home to do it all online because it would be cheaper. Justin remarks that he feels like Lilian’s slave, and a wistful sounding Lilian says “if only that were true darhling”! Watch it Justin, I think Lilian’s working on it.

Off to The Bull now, and Eddie’s drinking halves, which is always a bad sign, especially as this time Lynda’s finally paid him for the shepherd’s hut. The problem is he’s had to spend so much on time and materials to bring the hut up to Lynda’s standards that he’s hardly got any profit left.

Kenton runs into trouble when he expects Jolene to dress up as a dragon while he takes the lead as St. George. Jolene’s not having any of it and in desperation Kenton asks Jazzer if he would instead. Jazzer’s already made it clear that he thinks Kenton’s plan of celebrating St. George’s Day over the entire weekend is being greedy, so turns Kenton’s request down flat. I’m sure he wouldn’t complain if it were St. Andrew’s Day they were celebrating, and I’m even more sure that he’d accept Kenton’s offer of free drinks all night if it were his kilt he was being asked to wear instead of a dragon costume. He does cheer up though when he sees Kenton wearing the costume, with Jolene dressed as the saint.

I should point out for fear of offending our Scottish readers that I am aware that the kilt is not a fancy dress costume – in fact I am half Scottish myself and I do own a kilt – it’s just that as far as I’m aware St. Andrew didn’t slay a dragon, or any other mythical beast, and the wearing of a kilt seems to be the next obvious option.

Detective Sergeant Madeley could turn out to be a new favourite character of mine. It may be professional detachment, but when she goes to visit Rob in Hospital to take his statement, she gives the impression, to me at least, that she has little sympathy for him. She pushes him in his wheelchair to somewhere quiet and Rob wastes no time in trying to manipulate DSM by portraying his own version of the back-story, complete with a sprinkling of crocodile tears. He obviously hasn’t thought it all through yet, as when asked about whether there was a particular incident that triggered his stabbing, he doesn’t have an answer and asks for time to think about it. He doesn’t need time to think about blaming the pregnancy, Greg’s suicide, anti-depressants, anorexia, or Kirsty for Helen’s behaviour, as that is all part of his script.

Conveniently though it seems Rob can’t remember much about the actual day of the stabbing itself. I look forward to hearing how long he manages to carry that on for.