Declinacion del Deber

Lost classic Spanish crime/corruption thriller Declinacion del Deber has lain buried in the vaults of Telemadrid for nearly three decades. The ice cold, cynical depiction of endemic police corruption and political patronage garnered the creators some influential enemies in the Partido Popular who ascended to power as the programme was readied for broadcast..

First Case
Declinacion del Deber tells the story of X, a philosophical young detective investigating successful property developer Z who has amassed huge wealth and influence among the business and political elite. Y, Z’s son is a travel agent to Madrid’s wealthy and connected upper class. A flamboyant playboy, Y is frequently snapped in Madrid’s burgeoning gossip mags and prone to wild impulsive behaviour.

Out on the Street
Tokyo glints in morning sunshine as X touches down and wastes no time checking out Tokyo’s social hotspots on the trail of Y who has gone to ground. X is surprised to find Tokyo depressed, a real estate boom causing a crisis that has left disoriented salarymen walking the streets, drunk and tearful with neither homes nor jobs to go to. Y shows up in X’s hotel lobby and insists on taking X for sushi and gallons of strong, strong booze. Y (as always) picks up the tab.

Incident
X blearily shadows Y to a couple of meetings in nondescript Tokyo apartment blocks before accompanying him to Narita and a long trip back to Madrid. Y’s reasons for being in Japan remain oblique but X can tell from his terse, agitated mood that things haven’t gone well. After bidding farewell, X trails Y to a sparse office in a run down industrial estate near Coslada.

Ad Break
X is jolted from a doze having dropped the TV remote, it clatters onto the tiled floor. The television shows an American cop show, blue shirts and badges crowd a briefing room before the opening theme plays. It’s time X got back to work.

Investigation
Convinced of some link between Z’s burgeoning government contract business and Y’s business in Japan, X digs into a complex international web of shell companies siphoning government money and assets offshore to who knows where? X brings this information to superiors who advise tracking Y’s movements closely as they pursue the political authority to further investigate Z’s business.

Death
Y invites X to attend a flamboyant launch party of a new populist right wing party he is hosting at a bullring in the fashionable Boadilla del Monte on the outskirts of Madrid. As blood is shed and fireworks surge overhead X makes a grisly discovery in the corridors below the arena.


Reflection
Implicated in Y’s murder, X needs to lie low, fleeing the city on the A-2 to stay out of the limelight so the looming warehouses of Coslada offer anonymity and space to think. X finds Y’s portacabin office untouched, breaking in and discovering files that appear to show a money trail out of the country to one of Z’s shell companies.

Escape
Things are moving fast now with X needing to get out of Spain before the scandal of Y’s death hits the press. Slamming hard on the accelerator, speeding North to Barajas and a route out of the closing net. If there are answers X is sure they’re in Japan...

End Title
Cop Show will return...