The Best Episodes Written By Paul Abbott

The Gallaghers have a big problem on their hands when a local child goes missing from a party. Debbie steals/kidnaps a baby from the estate. However, the local residents immediatly think that the kid has been kidnapped by a pervert not least because Frank thinks he saw one outside the house of the missing girl. The race is on to find the girl while the Gallaghers, Veronica & Kev come up with a madcap scheme to get the baby back. It looks set for disaster but somehow they manage to get it off. The baby is returned and Debbie is flooded with money and praise by the Police little knowing she actually kidnapped the kid in the first place. Meanwhile after all the excitement Karen Jackson seduces Frank and they pair embark on a dangerous and likely disasterious affair.

The balifs and Mr Wilson are still after Frank. And Frank seems to be more interested in spending time with his ex-wife, Monica, than dealing with his spiraling debts. However, much to Frank's annoyance Norma, Monica's lesbian partner, gives Frank a good idea, to fake his own death! Meanwhile Maggie realises that Frank isn't as interested in her as she hoped. When Anthony comes around to talk about Fiona she accidentally gets Chilli in her eyes and staggers out into the Garden! The first time she has been out in five years! Tony has finally found the perfect way to get rid of Steve and get with Fiona for he has stumbled across Steve's car stealing scam. The balifs aren't so convinced that Frank is dead until one of them attacks Frank in his coffin, in front of the family! When Frank doesn't stir the balif finally realises that Frank is really dead, and how sick his violent outburst/attack seemed. At Frank's wake Frank bursts out of the coffin and a party starts. Maggie turns up to ever

In preparation for her wedding to Frank, Sheila commissions the building of a conservatory in her back yard - but she suddenly remembers her first husband is buried under the patio. Veronica's last stab at IVF on the NHS fails, so she hatches a macabre plan to raise cash for private treatment.

Frank brings down the power of the social services on his family in a failed attempt to extract money from Monica.

After walking out of her job at the nursery, Fiona confesses to Veronica that she is pregnant by Craig and hasn't told him. Frank falls foul of two shifty accident claims salesmen after being hit in the mouth by Kash's shop door. Kash and Yvonne cannot afford to pay out and are forced to close the shop.

Debbie has a new best friend who is everything she wants to be and has the boys falling at her feet. Suddenly Debbie realises what other girls her own age have been getting up to and what she's been missing out on while left holding the fort at home. Sue disappears leaving Marty to deal with the debt collectors in the only way he knows how.

Cameron tells Yvonne Shaps that he has sacked Cal making him a freelance journalist and that Cal has the copyright to the story if she does not give them more money for the story Cal will go to another paper. Yvonne gives them the money. Foy gives them an e-mail linking Sonia with U-Ex Oil and Warner-Scloss. Stephen tells Cal he will resign from the Energy Select Committee and help get him a story that will link George Fergus to Sonia's murder. During an interview Collins talks about Sonia meeting Paul Canning from Warner-Scloss at the Trocadero everyday. Cal realises that this is information that Collins should not know and that there may now be a link to Stephen and Sonia's hitman.

When Carol discovers her best friend Lillian had an affair with her husband back in the seventies, she takes revenge by reporting her to the DSS for benefit fraud. Frank Gallagher, who has been posing as Lillian's dead husband and claiming his benefits, comes under suspicion.

Monica comes back when Frank needs her to sign documents and decides to take Liam with her. Meanwhile, Steve and Fiona move together.

Spin-doctor Andrew Wilson has a letter which shows Stephen Collins was about to leave his wife Anne and move in with Sonia Baker - so Collins has been lying to Cal. The Collinses give a press conference, and Anne says she knew about Sonia. Cal's team wants to know who leaked their story to a rival paper. Journalist Dan leads them to Dominic Foy. Meanwhile, Stella's flat is raided by the man who shot at the courier who witnessed Stagg's murder. Then Anne and Cal begin an affair. The newspaper finally hands the stolen briefcase over to the police, but Cal refuses to say where he got it and is arrested.

Cal is released on bail. In order to get a decoy for Della, Cal arranges to get a story to the press about his release. Cal has now become a target for the hit man and needs police protection. DCI Bell questions Stephen Collins and suggest that Sonia Baker was blackmailing him and had threatened to make their affair public knowledge. Both Bell and The Herald want to interview Dominic Foy, especially when they discover he has had a past relationship with Sonia Baker.

With Deering, Dinah and Joy's friendship in jeopardy and Donna Calvert missing, the race to prevent the Attahs' escape and to bag them once and for all puts the team's lives at stake. The final action-packed showdown sees Viv at her finest, deconstructing Nora's family, and trying to repair the fractures that have crept in to her own...

The children's paternity is put into question and Frank needs Carl's help.

Bill Nash smiles at Stuart Grady, and, in those few seconds, changes the course of their lives and inadvertently turns them both to murder. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, Judith finally rebels.

Fitz is pitched against Grady and Nash, whose relationship is now spinning dangerously out of control.

Fitz privately advises a patient who seems to be having problems with her husband. Fitz's advice, for which he charges her £50, leads her to conclude that she should leave him.

Ian meets Jack and soon begins an affair with him. What will Kash say if he learns the truth, and more importantly, why is Jack behaving suspiciously?

The Gallagher clan can't believe it when Carl starts to bring money into the household - but his mini-enterprise involves growing cannabis for the Maguires and the police are quick to bust him. Lip is jealous when Mandy gets a new boyfriend and he later discovers that she was the brains behind Carl's business.

Teenager Kelvin Stagg is shot dead in a London street. Then politician Stephen Collins breaks down when he hears his assistant Sonia Baker has been killed by falling under a train. A newspaper editor asks his journalist Cal McCaffrey (Stephen's former campaign manager) to look for a connection between the two deaths, and McCaffrey finds the dead teenager had stolen a silver metallic briefcase. McCaffrey traces the briefcase and in it he finds pictures of Stephen and Sonia - and a gun.

Della manages to get Dominic Foy back into the hotel for another interview. Stephen Collins is listening to the interview next door and speaking through a concealed microphone tells Della what questions to ask. When he discovers that Sonia was pregnant and Foy adds that Collins didn't care about her he forces his way into Foy's room and phtsically attacks him. Foy is taken to hospital. Greer tells Cal that George Fergus convinced her to employ Sonia Baker, even though Sonia had less qualifications than the other applicants. Cameron now has a story, but is 'gagged' by U-Ex oil and Westminster, he prints this fact in short headlines. As a result The Herald brings in another editor to edit 'the headlines' . Cameron has a document witnessed by Della and tells Cal that the copyright to the final story will be his.

Linda staggers home with the gang after a big night out, only to find that her flat has been ransacked. All kinds of electrical equipment has gone, and a bag with keys in. Linda asks Jimmy to stay the night, but Darren leaps into action, telling Linda to stay at his place while he and Jimmy change all the locks. Jimmy tells Darren he blames the people Linda meets in internet chatrooms for the burglary. Darren is intrigued and excited by the idea. Suddenly, a woman, Norma, bursts in waving police ID. She has a good look around the flat and questions the boys who assume she's a detective. When she catches up with Linda she asks for a list of all the men she's been involved with in the past year. She's amazed when the list comes to fifteen! Norma keeps popping up, asking everyone Linda knows about the burglary and filling Linda's head with frightening statistics. She even turns up at the club one night. Unfortunately her dancing dislodges her ID and when Michelle picks it up she realises

Feeling post-natal and paranoid after the birth of their new baby—and with their sex life gone to pot—Linda's best mate Michelle reaches breaking-point when she clocks Linda pinching boyfriend Darren's bum at the club. Unable to convince her friend she's got it wrong, and faced with her own forthcoming birthday celebrations - which even Linda's on-off amour, Jimmy doesn't want to attend because of the fall-out - Linda cancels the party she'd planned for a night in alone with a pizza and a few beers. Never one to start lonely for long, Linda decides to pour out her heart to the unsuspecting pizza delivery boy. Eddie (turns out to be a born listener with a head stuffed full of half-baked New Age philosophies. According to him, all Linda needs to do a reverse of her ill-fortune is to carry out a spot of emergency Feng Shui on her flat. Delighted with the results of sorting out her own negative shi, Linda gets to work on the energy hotspots in all her friends' lives, with the aid of a well

Michelle, Darren and Jimmy are off to an old friend's wedding do and they all pile round to Linda's to wait for the cab. Jimmy shows up with a bloody nose—he's dating Gaynor again and she's got quite a temper on her. ""It was only when he turned blue I realised she'd got his windpipe."" Darren laughs. Gaynor's real problem is with Linda: she's threatened by her and jealous of her relationship with Jimmy. To make life easier for him, Linda decides not to go to the wedding. But the others don't want to go without her. In fact, the others don't want to go at all. Soon the party's happening round Linda's with the unexpected addition of Katy and Ricky who sneak round in the hope they'll have the place to themselves for the night. As the evening progresses, and the scotch begins to flow, Jimmy drops a bombshell on Linda. He's finally had it with his ""on-again-off-again,"" ""no-strings-sex"" relationship with Linda and he's ready for something more. How will Linda deal with Jimmy's declaration: ""Y

A group of patients who are all on the same ward at a local hospital die within minutes of each other. When the cause of death is found to be an overdose of drugs, and each of the victims has the tattoo 'let me go' stencilled onto their back, Creegan and Taylor investigate the hospital cleaner, Carl Burgess, who is found in possession of items belonging to a senior doctor. Creegan is left unconscious after being attacked at home, but who is responsible?

Having her handbag stolen proves to be a blessing for Fiona when a handsome stranger named Steve comes to her rescue. Lip is shocked to discover Ian could be gay and decides his brother should pay a visit to the ever-accommodating Karen Jackson down the block. But the sudden arrival of her furious father Eddie ensures Ian's already-slim chances of happiness with Karen take a severe blow. Meanwhile, Steve buys Fiona a romantic gift, but for some reason she's less than impressed with it.