Ashes to Ashes

DI Alex Drake is taken hostage and shot, and wakes up in a brothel... in 1981. Rescued in a police raid, she quickly recognises DCI Gene Hunt and his team from detailed reports made by DCI Sam Tyler about his own trip to 1973. Gene is determined to address Londons growing drugs problem, and has targeted city playboy Edward Markham as the brains behind the operation. Alex suspects Arthur Layton, the man who kidnapped her in 2008. Could Layton be the key to her return to her own time?

Fresh from a successful drugs bust, Gene and the team investigate a prostitutes rape allegation. A dangerous serial attacker may be at large, but the case is hampered by an unreliable witness and the suspects connections.

Gene and Alex discover that a notorious pimp and drug dealer has a major firearms deal in the pipeline. In an attempt to locate him, the team go undercover in a gay club, and Ray goes beyond the call of duty to get his man.

The team investigates the armed robbery of a fundraiser who has been travelling across the country in a bathtub full of baked beans to raise money for Children in Need. Alex thinks that a crime reconstruction on Police Five will do the trick, but Gene prefers some old-fashioned police work.

When a dead man is found in a Soho strip club, it looks like a sex game has gone wrong. So when the deceased is discovered to be a police officer, Gene and Alex are ordered to keep the case under wraps.

Animal rights activists have threatened a series of attacks in London and the first victim, the daughter of a commercial laboratory owner, is in hospital. Gene orders his team not to sleep until those responsible are behind bars. Their first stop is a prison where Robin Elliot, a known animal rights campaigner, is serving time for killing a scientist in the 1970s. Alex is convinced that Robin knows about the planned attacks, but with no contact with the outside world, there doesnt appear to be any way for him to be involved. Robins eerily prescient knowledge of the future makes Alex think that he could be involved not only with the case, but with her own fate; having heard the voices of ambulancemen, Alex worries that hope is fading for her survival in the present day.

When a violent burglary occurs at Alexs in-laws house, she comes face-to-face with their son Peter, the 14-year-old future father of Molly! Alex is desperate to help Mollys grandparents all she can, but Gene wants a big collar to bury the press stories of police corruption, and dismisses the case as trivial. When the fingerprints from the crime scene reveal the burglar was George Staines, a notorious gangster, now supposedly dead, Gene realises this could be the catch he was after. Alex remembers hearing stories about the burglary, and is convinced that she would remember if the culprit was as infamous as Staines. Gene is determined to uncover the truth and get the headline he deserves. Alex finally meets the mysterious man who has been leaving roses in her apartment and office. He tells her that she can go home to see her daughter again, but involves her becoming corrupt.

CID find a body buried in concrete as they investigate a drugs drop at a building site. Alex thinks she is getting better and will soon wake up in her own time. Working on the case though starts to clash with her wish to be back home.

Alex soon realises she has not returned home after all, and wakes up in 1983. Gene is on the run, and DCI Jim Keats has arrived from Complaints to investigate CID following the shooting. Newly-promoted DI Ray Carling leads an investigation into the kidnapping of a young girl, and sets up a sting operation. Alex decides that she will have to discover the truth about Gene if she is ever to get back to her own time.

Gene and the rest of CID are feeling the pressure to stop a series of politically motivated arson attacks in the lead up to the 1983 General Election, after a military compound and a polling station are set alight. DCI Jim Keats announces his plans to monitor the way Hunt and his team work while trying to turn each member of of the team against Gene. Elsewhere, Alex continues to mount her investigation into what really happened to Sam Tyler in 1980 and is struggling to work out why she is being haunted by the young police officer.

When DCI Gene Hunts former Manchester colleagues, DCI Litton and DI Bevan, turn up on his patch he immediately smells a rat. Theyre in pursuit of northern comic Frank Hardwick whos wanted for stealing 2,000 pounds from the Police Widows Fund. However, their desperation to track him down leaves Gene and DI Alex Drake suspicious of their real motive.

DCI Jim Keats has almost finished his report into DCI Gene Hunt and his team, but hes still pushing DI Alex Drake to find out what really happened to Sam Tyler. When reports come in of a disturbance at an ANC illegal drinking den Gene heads in all guns blazing. The men at the club are quick to dismiss the disturbance as nothing, but when DI Ray Carling spots blood on the floor and discovers a dead body, it leads Gene into a murder investigation.