A Touch of Class was the fifth episode in the first series of the BBC crime drama Hustle, which aired on March 23rd 2005.
Synopsis[]
Desperate for a lucrative con, the team decides to fleece a rich, bitchy and recently divorced woman and decide to do the Congreve con (defrauding a vengeful woman).
Everything is going according to the plan until Mickey's feelings for the woman start to get into the way, but who is actually the 'victim' in this particular scam?
Full Plot[]
Mickey sees a newspaper article about a recently divorced businesswoman, Katherine Winterborn, who's accused of wreaking revenge on her ex-husband. Katherine is perfect bait for the 'Congreve', an old con.Albert goes off to do his stuff, and rope her at an art class. "When he was younger, Albert was the doyen of the 'Congreve'. He could sniff out a vengeful woman like a pig with a truffle."The team's desperate for a lucrative con, particularly Ash.
Mickey's shocked to discover that Ash's ex-wife, fellow con artist June, recently suffered brain damage, whilst doing 'the flop'. Ash has been paying for her care bills in a nursing home, but his money is about to run out. Mickey tells Ash they'll all help to pay - after all, "she's family". It doesn't go well at the art class. Katherine is rude, cold, and refuses to fall for Albert's charms. It's time for plan B - blatant sex appeal. Danny's obviously keen to give it a try but the con requires experience, so it's up to Mickey to reel Katherine in. She's terrified of lifts, so Ash orchestrates the ideal situation: Mickey and Katherine in a lift, when it suddenly breaks down. The lift is out of action long enough for Mickey to break down Katherine's barriers and by the time they reach ground level, she's offering to take him out for dinner. Over dinner, Mickey tells her the tale: he's setting up a spa business, to rival her ex-husband's. Katherine wants to help - she knows how spas work, what makes them special, and she also wants to impress Mickey. There's a real spark between them.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team go about setting things up - Danny's meeting architecture students, Stacie's arranging business space and Ash is designing a website. Katherine finally agrees to invest £100,000 in the new spa business but, when Mickey brings her the contract, she's changed her mind. In the heat of the moment, when both are feeling vulnerable,Mickey breaks all the rules and makes love to Katherine. When Mickey goes to leave, he tells her he's a con man, there was never any spa for her to invest in. Shocked, Katherine offers Mickey £250,000 to destroy her ex-husband instead - "a rat to catch a rat". The team agrees that, if Stephen Winterborn is as bad as Mickey says he is, it's morally OK for them to go ahead. After all, they need the money. But how can they destroy Stephen? An embarrassed Danny has the answer.
He's 'discovered' that prostitutes work at the spa. If this information were made public, it would destroy him, his business and his stock market flotation. Stacie orchestrates a meeting with Stephen (played by Ben Miles), then introduces him to Ash posing as "Mister Cavendish", her 'PR associate'. Stephen's presentation is consequently doctored and it's just a case of waiting, then watching his very public downfall. But during the launch party, alarm bells start ringing for the team. They realise (too late) that Katherine has conned Mickey into thinking that Stephen is the worthy mark. Without the team's knowledge, she returned to their "rented" office in search of a lost earring, and was aware of the con longer than she's let on. Armed with this information, she has pulled their strings to exact revenge on her ex-husband.
Trivia[]
- The mark of the episode is Catherine Winterborn.
External links[]
- A Touch of Class on Internet Movie Database
- A Touch of Class at the Hustle series 1-4 archive at BBC Online
- A Touch of Class at TV.com
Gallery[]
