Episode 2: 'Mode Murder', originally transmitted on BBC1, 29 April 1982

Following the murder of his Fraud Squad associate, Richardson, civil servant Henry Jay goes on the run. Bidding goodbye to his bewildered wife, Ann, he sells his stamp collection and sets up in a small rented flat, buying himself a powerful computer. He borrows network time from an old contact and tracks down Hannah Brent, the Brussels-based bureaucrat girlfriend of fraudster Louis Vacheron, whose attempt to blackmail a prominent Euro MP led to his death at the hands of the shadowy le Pouvoir - the power.

Meanwhile, Hendersley, Henry's boss at the Department for Commercial Development, assigns security officer Chambers to work alongside Detective Sergeant Vine to find Henry. With the help of a police computer expert, Henry's stamp dealer and the computer saleswoman who sold him his equipment, Vine and Chambers locate Henry's apartment. But Henry has already left. They decide to wait. Hendersley waits at Henry's house, to Ann's annoyance.

Henry meets Hannah in Brussels and they spend a day together, discussing Vacheron, le Pouvoir - a figment of Vacheron's imagination, she asserts - and Hugo Jardine, the Euro MP Vacheron was trying to blackmail. Hannah agrees to try to uncover information about Jardine. The two hit it off, but Henry declines Hannah's invitation to her flat. However, Henry's suspicion, aroused by realising that she has been taping their conversations, grows when he sees police at his hotel. When, at the airport the next day, she fails to recognise the code given to him by Richardson to identify himself, he realises that 'Hannah' is an imposter. He flees, evading 'Hannah' and her associate and returning to London.

Back in London, Henry approaches Hendersley, who takes him to British intelligence officer Bridgenorth. Bridgenorth reintroduces him to 'Hannah', really a British agent, and explains that le Pouvoir is a loose federation of diverse interests - political, criminal, terrorist, intelligence, police - whose operatives, including the murderers of Vacheron and Richardson, may be entirely unaware why they are carrying out an assignment, or for whom. Jardine, Bridgenorth continues, is working for British intelligence, whose cover Richardson, and Henry, came close to blowing.