Tinker is in a very strange mood: he abandons Beth at a bus stop, ruins a deal for Lovejoy and leaves a pint of beer half drunk. Then he disappears without trace.

Lovejoy takes a valuable gun to a famous gunsmith whose Soho shop is now the target of unscrupulous landlords. But the gun is stolen and Lovejoy's dinner with Charlotte is interrupted by the police who arrive in force to arrest him.