Malcolm Fairchild has just had his car checked and MOT-tested at Bernie's garage when he loses control over the vehicle and plunges into a garden. Luckily nobody gets seriously hurt, but Bernie gets into serious trouble because the tyres are bald. The next morning he is nowhere to be found and David fears the worst.. Helen Trent's estranged husband finds out about her affair with Rob Walker and makes a complaint to Sergeant Miller, who takes the matter very seriously.

A car crashes on the road to Aidensfield. The driver Ellen Ferguson is badly injured while her husband and daughter get off with only minor bruises. PC Mason is sure that she was speeding, but her husband Lennie denies that. But there might be more behind it than that because Nurse Cassidy notices at mysterious man who frightens the daughter Trudi. Shortly after another stranger turns up at the hospital asking for Ellen Ferguson. Only he calls her Phillips and not Ferguson. David wins some money and uses them to buy an old Jeep which Bernie will help him restore. But it turns out that it is not any old Jeep when they find Field Marshall Montgomery's beret in it.