The first episode ("The Best of Both Worlds") opens with Crabbe, after 25 years in the force, just seven weeks away from retirement when he finds himself close to catching high-profile fraudster Dudley Hooperman (played by Michael Kitchen), whom he has been trailing for years. While making his escape (with £3–4 million worth of stolen treasury bills) Hooperman shoots Crabbe in the leg, which, although a relatively minor injury, consolidates Crabbe's desire to retire on his police pension and open his own restaurant in the fictional town of Middleton – "Pie in the Sky", technically owned by his wife Margaret, although Henry is the main chef. (Much to Henry's disgust, Margaret has no feeling whatever for food, seeing it as nothing more than fuel, and has a partiality for bars of chocolate and – horror of horrors, in Henry's eyes – prawn cocktail flavour crisps). However, during his "final" case, an investigation into police corruption, he is tricked into appearing to take a bribe. Although Crabbe himself is entirely innocent, the circumstances enable his superior, A.C.C. Fisher, effectively to blackmail Crabbe into continuing to take on occasional cases as required, threatening to re-open the inquiry if Crabbe disagrees. Thus Crabbe has, in Fisher's own words, the best of both worlds – still investigating the cases that Fisher puts his way while at the same time cooking back at "Pie in the Sky".