The Playbirds 1978

In London, a chilling pattern emerges as an unidentified serial killer targets female models, strangling each victim and etching the forehead with the number of the current victim. Chief Superintendent Holbourne, Glynn Edwards, and Inspector Harry Morgan, Gavin Campbell, are assigned to the case and quickly uncover a disturbing connection: every woman had recently appeared in Playbirds, a pornographic magazine produced by its publisher and others in the industry.

Four suspects are soon identified: the magazine’s publisher Harry Dougan, the photographer Terry Day, a street preacher named Hern, and anti-pornography campaigner George Ransome MP. Dougan and Day are ruled out early, narrowing the field but leaving the fear intact for the models who remain in the crosshair of the killer.

Lena, Suzy Mandel, the next Playbirds star to receive protection, is under round-the-clock police guard. Yet a brief security lapse is all the killer needs to slip into her flat and murder her in the living room, making this killer’s fifth victim and upping the stakes for everyone involved.

To draw out the culprit, Holbourne and Morgan hatch a bold undercover plan. They recruit Sergeant Lucy Sheridan, Mary Millington, to pose as an up-and-coming Playbirds model. After auditions at the Yard, where several female officers perform a striptease to demonstrate suitability, Sheridan takes a job at a massage parlour to stage a proper introduction to Dougan and the world he inhabits.

Meanwhile, Ransome—who secretly enjoys the pornography Day supplies—faces suspicious attention as he is seen peering through the window at a house party hosted by Dougan. The detectives move to arrest him, but he escapes and in the ensuing chase nearly drowns in a pond before being transported to hospital for treatment.

Hern, who has already been implicated for spying on the models during a photo shoot, is arrested and subjected to further questioning. The investigation appears to be converging on him as a primary suspect, but the case takes a grim turn when Sheridan receives a phone update and a man who resembles Hern breaks into her flat, strangling her in the bathtub and declaring that he is Hern’s twin brother. The tension escalates as the investigators reassess their leads and the threat to the models remains imminent.