to decimal currency)—his shabby office, and the fact that he is often compelled to take on almost any offer of work just to earn his living. The plot concerns Marker being hired to protect a rather unlikeable businessman, Carson, who is receiving death threats. In keeping with the series' ethos of downplaying physical violence, Marker insists on being employed as a chauffeur rather than a bodyguard. He ends up taking a physical beating for his unlikeable client—a beating that is mostly off-screen and one that the viewer only sees the results of. The episode ends with Marker refusing an offer of permanent employment by Carson and returning to his freelance ways. Marker's work of necessity often involved him with the police and the criminal underworld—both factions dislike him but, although they have some need for him, make his life difficult. The other surviving series 1 episode, "The Morning Wasn't So Hot", sees Marker cross paths with an organised criminal gang; he is thrown into the River Thames by underworld figures as "persuasion" to drop his enquiries into the whereabouts of a missing girl he has been hired to trace—she has been forced into a life of professional vice at the behest of the gang. Partly as a result of this, the beginning of the second series he decides to leave London and moves to England's second city of Birmingham. Things do not improve, and he continues to be mixed up in a world of shadowy figures. The ABC episodes ended with "Cross That Palm When We Come To It" (broadcast on 13 April 1968) as Marker acts for a solicitor over some stolen jewels, as a go-between with the gang who stole them and want the reward money. Taking the recovered jewels back to his office, Marker receives a visit from the police and is convicted of receiving stolen property—the solicitor who hired him was crooked and has disappeared. Marker pleads guilty to the charge and is sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. "Cross That Palm" is not one of the five surviving ABC episodes. It did however provide the basis for a 1974 novelisation by Audley Southcott (Sphere Books, ). Episodes produced by Thames Television 1969–1975 Big changes had occurred in the ITV franchises in Britain in 1968, and ABC had been forced to merge with rival company Rediffusion London to create what became one of the powerhouses of