Minder on the Orient Express

Nikki South inherits the contents of a bank strongbox left by her father, the former gangland boss Jack South, just before his death in 1975, and discovers that the items form a clue to the number of a Swiss bank account where his ill-gotten gains are stored.

Nikki is ambushed on her way to a birthday party; masked attackers try to seize the clues tucked away in an envelope, but she is rescued by Dennis Waterman, who plays Terry McCann, a temporary doorman at the club hosting the celebration. She later thanks him with two return tickets for the Orient Express to Venice. Terry, unaware of Nikki’s ulterior motive, plans to take Annie, his girlfriend who also works at the club, along with him.

Nikki schemes to travel to Switzerland with her boyfriend Mark on the same train to claim the stash. But others have their eyes on the windfall: a bent bank manager, a hitman, and the widow of a former associate of her father.

Arthur Daley George Cole is on the run, having been a reluctant witness to a protection racket attack. Detective Sergeant Rycott is trying to serve a subpoena to force him to testify in court against the violent gangster Brian “Brain Damage” Gammidge. Arthur manages to outmaneuver the situation by convincing Terry’s girlfriend that Terry’s non-existent wife and children have arrived unexpectedly, and when she angrily dumps him, Arthur shows up at the railway station and brazenly persuades a furious Terry to take him along, thus evading the subpoena.

As they travel toward Folkestone, Nikki calls on Terry’s help again, while former associates press to recover the envelope. They also discover that Arthur’s other nemesis, DS Chisholm Patrick Malahide, is traveling on the train, having been seconded to Interpol alongside an Interpol agent to observe the various “faces.”

Across night-time France, a free-for-all fight erupts, with Chisholm joining in to uphold the police’s honor against a loose-cannon French detective. When the train halts after the emergency cord is pulled, Arthur, Terry, and Nikki depart the train, now joined by Chisholm.

Nikki and Terry crack the code to the bank account number—derived from the players’ shirt numbers in the 1971 Arsenal F.C. FA Cup match—but after a fight with two villains on a local French train, the partial Swiss bank account number is lost. In the end, there is no pot of gold for anyone, and the protagonists head back to Fulham Broadway.

Last Updated: November 22, 2025 at 16:00