She introduces her fellow workers Niall Tennyson, (a surveillance expert), Dan McGrain (a gentleman sleuth) and Jim Vultour (anti social dick). They are currently struggling to make ends meet and each detective is slogging through mundane cases. Janine bumps into Jack Street, local informant, who informs her of the upcoming Detective Union Of Ireland AGM. 

According to Street, it’s going to be full of detective memorabilia, talks, symposiums and all manner of detective based entertainment. Janine rushes back to the office to look for their invites but nothing has come. None of her co­‐workers have seen the invites either. 

Why would they not be invited to the DUI AGM?! Is there a conspiracy afoot? Our detectives put the kettle on and begin to deduce!  

McGrain thinks it could be because the head of the DUI is Deirdre Dupin, ex wife of their old mentor Basil Maguire. Janine reckons it could be because the invites got lost in the post. Tennyson confirms that they have paid their DUI fees for the year so they are entitled to attend. 

They are then called on by angry local litter warden Ned Savage who blames them for a discarded invite he found. They in turn blame Jack Street but to no avail. Savage warns them to pay it. The detectives make their decision: they’re going to crash the AGM if they have to! 

En route to Wisteria Lodge they receive a disguised phone call saying there’s a bomb under Vultour’s car and if they slow, it’ll explode. Poor Tennyson is chosen to go underneath the car and defuse it. Can he do it in time? 

The detectives enter and immediately meet Vultour and McGrain’s former mentor Basil Maguire, along with mystery writer Kate Marple, head of the DUI Deirdre Dupin, hipster detective Noel Lovejoy, Corkonian sleazebag detective Jimmy Kolchak and bull necked head of security Aeneas Murdoch. They marvel at all the great detective themed attractions taking place in the ballroom. 

They are immediately accosted by detective in training and general villainous scourge Tom Moriarty. He wants them to produce their invites. Which they don’t have. When Janine realises that Moriarty was responsible for issuing the invites to the event, she deduces that he set Jack Street up to steal theirs! 

All because he didn’t want them there! An argument between them ensues. Janine ends up pie facing Moriarty with a plate full of Ferrero Rocher. Deirdre Dupin, head of the DUI, calls for security to kick them out. Instead, the detectives decide to do a runner into the hotel with security in hot pursuit. 

But how long can they stay in the hotel? And will they face disgrace?

Nobody ever suspects hotel porters! Suddenly, Janine screams at something in the corner: a man’s body lying motionless. They rush over to discover that it’s Basil Maguire. 

They describe what has been done to Maguire as they check his body. There’s no sign of a scuffle so perhaps he’s been strangled? McGrain notes the lack of strangulation marks and deduces that he has perhaps been poisoned. 

Then Tennyson drops a bombshell. ‘Hold on. We’ve just put our hands all over him. Aren’t we going to be the main suspects?’ McGrain curses not wearing fingerprinting gloves. Now they need to prove their innocence! There’s a killer on the loose. 

And they’re the only ones who know about it! 

This will give them more time to find the killer. Vultour suggests that maybe Maguire is faking. They all start tickling the corpse. It doesn’t move. Not even slightly. Vultour then roots through his pocket and finds his room key. To Basil’s room! A suspenseful scene ensues as our four heroes struggle out into the hallway, keeping Basil Maguire upright, pretending he is alive. 

A maid stops and asks if their friend is okay. Janine tells her that he is just drunk. Then they accidentally drop him and Maguire’s body smacks off the floor. Yes, our heroes couldn’t look any more suspicious. Luckily, the maid doesn’t seem too fussed and moves on. Meanwhile Deirdre Dupin’s threats are barked over the intercom: ‘This convention is closing and I will make sure that every non ticket holder is prosecuted!’ 

Our heroes arrive at Basil’s room, awkwardly trying to hold his body up as Vultour fiddles with the keys. They prop up Maguire’s body in his bed, in his pyjamas, reading a newspaper, looking very life like indeed. Their next step… draw up a list of suspects! 

While they argue in the hall they are approached by mystery writer Kate Marple who invites them into her room for tea and Battenberg. McGrain decides to utilise Marple’s knowledge of detective fiction and posit a ‘fictional’ version of Basil’s death in order to buy them sometime to identify some suspects. The clock is ticking. Literally. There’s a really loud clock in the room. It adds lots of tension to their deliberations. McGrain draws up the hypothetical scenario which excites Marple no end. Who would kill Basil Maguire? And why?

Their theories are halted by shouts of ‘Murder!’ Basil has been discovered! Even worse, Marple realises that they have been using her to kill time. Before she can alert anyone, Janine knocks her out with a punch. Who has found Basil’s body?! Will the hounds be released on our heroes scent?! To be continued! 

Tom Moriarty notes he’s been bludgeoned. Deirdre Dupin is shocked. Jack Street is more shifty than usual. Noel Lovejoy reckons it was a nasty accident. Insults and crazy theories are flung about. It’s a room full of ego’s, all competing to solve a murder. 

Jimmy Kolchak demands Dupin phone the police but Dupin refuses. She says someone has killed Ireland’s greatest detective and that whoever solves the murder will become Ireland’s greatest detective. It’s the perfect case! McGrain notices something and tries to whisper to Tennyson. He leans forward, but trips on a cable and both of them crash through the door, landing to the ground. Everyone stops and stares at them. Moriarty shouts: ‘It was them!’ Deirdre Dupin immediately radio’s for security. 

Our heroes are forced to disband, escaping down the corridor. What a horrid cliffhanger: our detectives are now the suspects! 

Street recounts his perspective on the scene that V.P.I. encountered when the body was found. Street decides to do some snooping of his own. Using his trusty Dunnes Stores Value Club card, he gains access to Maguire’s bedroom looking for any snitch worthy evidence. Whilst snooping he overhears someone outside. He decides to hide in the wardrobe. 

In Maguire’s room he overhears a voice, which sounds like infamous bounty hunter for hire Maeve Munroe but he can’t be sure. Then he gets a most awkward sneezing fit. Street is dragged from the wardrobe and beaten by unseen assailants. He awakes to find himself tied to a strange bed. Across from him is Ned Savage. 

This is quite the predicament… 

Maguire departs and that’s all the contact Ned has with the soon to be dead man. Ned retreats back to the bar for a pint of whiskey. Here he is approached Kate Marple who appears to be chatting him up. Soon Ned begins to feel woozy. He wakes up, in a strange room, with no clothes on. And Jack Street is next to him. Using Jack’s trusty Dunnes Stores Value Club card, they get free. Jack tells him about his beating from who is presumably Maeve Munroe. Ned realises that they are in the murder victim’s room. 

Have they been set up as patsy’s? One Dunnes Stores Value Club Card to the door later and two men are soon running around a hotel in lockdown. They abruptly bang into McGrain. Ned tells them what happened and Jack and how the hotel is full of suspicious activity. McGrain is still distrustful of Jack after the stolen invite debacle from Episode 1. McGrain is on the run from Dupin’s security team. Savage realises that Street isn’t to be trusted and cruelly tells him to get lost. 

Who was the woman who drugged Ned? And why did she want to set him up?  

Vultour hears Deirdre Dupin flanked by Moriarty searching for them up ahead. Quickly, he jumps into a laundry basket. Vultour whispers that he hopes someone moves it to another part of the hotel, like in the movies. He waits a long time. Nobody moves it. Then Dupin and Moriarty begin to get quite intimate right on top of the laundry basket. Much to Vultour’s relief, they are interrupted by head of security Murdoch who informs them that he has located the murder weapon. 

Vultour clambers out of his hiding place and contacts Janine. Realising Moriarty and Dupin are having an affair, Moriarty seems the most likely suspect to stitch them up. All of a sudden Janine bangs into someone. She screams! Her feed cuts out. Vultour can’t get through to her. 

What horrors are afoot? Who has accosted Janine? 

It’s Noel Lovejoy.  

The arrogant, obnoxious detective turned antique dealer has her collared. He accuses them of being behind the Maguire murder and says he’s taking them to Dupin for questioning. He loudly proclaims that he has solved the murder and boy does he lord it up. Janine is constantly annoying him by deducing the reasons why he might be the murderer. He’s not rising to the bait. Then she deduces the smell of his aftershave is a cheap Lidl brand. 

This causes him to freak out. Vultour appears behind him and knocks him out with a battery filled sock, knocking him out. Much relief ensues. Then Janine realises how loud they screamed. Janine says that they really need to find good disguises. And quickly! 

Vultour is only delighted. Can they evade capture for much longer?  

He’s confronted with a near naked men Dan McGrain. A man who is certainly not disabled. It’s an awkward moment. It gets even more awkward when Jimmy Kolchack wanders in to use the commode. He is also not disabled. McGrain is cornered. Disaster is averted when Jack Street enters and knocks Kolchak out with the door. 

This creates a free path for McGrain. Street tries to curry more favour by tipping the screaming Hamish Lane out of his wheelchair. McGrain isn’t having it though and tells Jack that he’ll have to do more to earn his trust back. 

McGrain escapes back into the hotel, eager to find his fellow detectives and put the pieces of this mystery together.  

Tennyson deduces that Ned avoided being set up as a patsy but why steal his van keys? And for what? When Tennyson realises that Savage’s hotel room was next to Maguire’s, he figures that the murder weapon must have been planted in Savage’s room because Ned’s keys are missing and his DNA is all over Maguire’s room. 

Then Dupin’s voice can be heard shouting ‘There he is!’ and soon all the detectives have hurried into the room and rushed for Ned. Dupin proclaims him suspect number one. Tennyson scurries away before he is noticed. As Ned is hauled off for questioning, the rest of the detectives reveal themselves as having been other members of the hotel staff at the bar. Hotel porters… such a novel disguise. 

They’re finally reunited but can they save an innocent man? Well, they’ll have to! 

Ned uses the opportunity to make fun of the protesting Moriarty. Dupin gets a phone call from Murdoch informing her of a melee in the lobby. She dashes off, leaving Ned with Moriarty. 

When she’s gone Moriarty reveals Ned’s van keys and demands Ned tell him the knack to opening the boot. Moriarty gives him the option of leaving with him and letting V.P.I. take the blame or else stay her and be blamed himself. Lovejoy enters looking for Moriarty’s help. 

Ned takes advantage of the distraction and frees himself. He takes out Moriarty and rips off Lovejoy’s moustache with his teeth. Ned decides to go looking for his car. 

It might be time for a quick getaway! 

Up and down they go, again and again as they try and figure out what exactly is going on. McGrain begins to ruminate on something from earlier. Something he noticed about Maguire’s corpse before they had that unfortunate pratfall. 

Vultour, meanwhile, is being plagued by annoying jingly elevator music. McGrain says there was a bloody gash on the side of Maguire’s head. A gash that wasn’t there when they first found his body…how curious! Vultour thinks he has it! They stumbled upon the body before the killer had finished the job! But why was he moved back to the drawing room? Janine says there’s only one potential conclusion: it was a decoy. 

Somebody is trying to distract all of the detectives at the convention! But why? 

In their excitement they forget to keep pressing the button on the elevator. It stops. It dings. The doors open. Standing in front of them is the hotel maid. They continue deducing and realise that Maeve Munroe is behind the distractions and she must be the one Moriarty hired to stop them arriving. Then they murdered Basil in order to create a decoy to steal Lovejoy’s precious antique collection. Then it drops. Maeve Munroe is masquerading as the maid! 

A silence ensues. They arrive at the ground floor. The door opens and with that, a tornado of fighting bodies falls out into the lobby. 

Dupin and Murdoch arrive demanding to know what’s happening. Soon, all the investigating detectives have arrived to surround our heroes. Munroe is protesting saying she’s merely a maid and she’s been attacked. Janine protests that the maid murdered Basil to distract everyone! 

Then our four detectives reveal themselves as not being porters. Everyone is obviously shocked and impressed. Dupin, Street, Lovejoy, Marple, Lane and Murdoch all throw out their deductions as to why V.P.I and Ned are responsible for the murder. They all agree that they’ve solved the murder together and congratulate each other. Janine curses their selfish logic as our heroes are dragged outside to go to the police station for questioning! 

Vultour notices Munroe smirking, as she exits, free of any accusations. Our detectives have been caught. And the villain is escaping (well, one of them)! What a cliffhanger! 

Suddenly, there’s the sound of a van honking and a huge CRASH. Everyone turns around! We can see that Ned has got his van back and he’s just crashed into the hotel sign. He shouts that he hid in his back seat until the villains showed up to drive off. And what’s more, he’s caught both Moriarty and his accomplice Munroe! 

And what’s even more than that, they have stolen Lovejoy’s loot! 

That’s what the murder was a decoy for! Moriarty wanted to distract all the detectives so he could rob Noel Lovejoy’s valuable antiquities! 

Tennyson sees someone getting out of the back of the band’s van, unnoticed... someone in a black bin liner. A deduction hits him, lighting quick. He thinks he has cracked the case! He quietly nudges Janine and says ‘Follow that man!’ As Dupin, Marple, Lovejoy and the other detectives argue and Ned shouts insults at them, Janine and the boys discreetly run to the hotel car park in pursuit of the escaping bin liner! 

Specifically plot twists. Like this one. 

It is revealed that the detectives are being held at gun point by Basil Maguire. He’s not dead. He’s alive. And he stole Ned Savage’s hiding in bin bags escape idea. McGrain is upset, Maguire was their hero, their mentor, why would he do something like this? Maguire says he’s sick of being the good guy. He became the most famous detective in Ireland and now he can’t get any work because he’s too famous to be hired! He’s gone bankrupt, the bank has taken his house and his books aren’t selling. He decided the only thing left to do was defeat the people he knew best: detectives. 

He consorted with apparently reformed villain Tom Moriarty and they agreed that they would team up on a huge robbery. And it worked! 

Maguire says he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for them and their pesky dog. Tennyson, confused, says that they didn’t bring a dog. Maguire tells him to shut up and with a smug smirk says they could never outwit Ireland’s greatest detective. He points the gun at Tennyson and demands that he give him their audio equipment and he’ll let them free. It’s a tense moment for our heroes. Basil demands Janine, as a ‘mere’ lady handover the recordings. 

Janine takes the recorder from Tennyson and sadly brings it over to Maguire. The smirking Maguire destroys the evidence with a clean gunshot! But then, the villain breaks his word and points the gun to Janine’s head. Maguire laughs, now the only proof of what he has done is them. And he has to dispose of the four detectives. It’s quite the tense moment. Janine is about to be shot. 

We bet you can’t wait for our next episode!  

Especially Jack Street who is sadly watching V.P.I. chase a walking bin liner until Hamish Lane tells him that he’s a failure as a snitch and he needs to stop his attempts at becoming legit, because he’ll always belong to the filthy snitching trade. Street loses it and once more, pushes Hamish out of his wheelchair. 

He decides to follow after V.P.I. to give them a piece of his mind. However, as he runs around the grounds of Wisteria Lodge to find them, Jimmy Kolchak who is intent on capturing V.P.I. for himself, jumps him. A tussle ensues and Street manages to crack open a bottle of chloroform from Kolchak’s pocket and douse him in it, leaving the Cork gumshoe knocked right out. Street hurriedly runs on and turns a corner to discover our Episode 18 predicament in action. 

Basil has V.P.I. at gunpoint. A confused Street has entered at the wrong time! Or the right time? He tells Basil to halt. Jack has something he wants to say to V.P.I. Is Street going to do a mischief to V.P.I.? 

And will Basil indulge our sketchy snitch? 

Unluckily, he’s passing out from the fumes. McGrain is hugging him furiously, which really isn’t a good idea. Janine tells Vultour and McGrain to chase down their old mentor while they head off Dupin’s oncoming detective posse. As Vultour and McGrain run for the maze, the chloroform is playing havoc with McGrain’s consciousness. They get lost in the maze before Vultour trips over something. Which actually turns out to be an unconscious McGrain. The timing ends up being ideal as a lost Maguire careers into the two of them and lands right on his head. 

They capture Maguire and drag him out to Dupin and the rest of the DUI posse where they see that yes, he is definitely not dead. Maguire protests his innocence but he’s carted off with his accomplices. Janine draws Dupin’s attention to the fact that by cracking the case they have proven themselves to be the best working detectives in Ireland. Dupin sorely admits that, yes, they deserve to be represented fairly by their union. 

With personal and professional validation attained, our four heroes go home where they plan to sit down over a cup of tea, revel in a job well done and get the whole case documented. Then, more tea.