Pie in the Sky

Henry Crabbe was shot by a master criminal called Dudley Hooperman (played on and off through the series by Michael Kitchen). As a result, Crabbe was invalided out of the police force in a half-baked kind of way.

Henry is a "foody", but only to the extent that he loves plain cooking, however he has little time for culinary pretention. Henry has been allowed to open up his own restaurant (called "Pie in the Sky") in return for which he must help out on cases selected by Freddie Fisher - an assistant chief constable who joined the force around the same time as Henry. We are made aware early on in the series that, although the two men started the job together, Fisher has risen up through the ranks by asiduous career management, whilst Crabbe has plodded on enjoying his job rather than playing the promotion game. Fisher is happy for Henry to be at his beck and call whenever something comes up that needs some slightly discrete or unofficial handling. Freddie is an very uptight man, whom Crabbe finds both infuriating and a source of humour.

Henry would like to think that he cares more about "Pie in the Sky" than being a policemen, but we realise that he actually gets a buzz from aspects of both careers.