Commander Clare Blake makes her top priority the shooting of an unwanted civilian that was originally declared lawful. D.C.I. Hedges wants the case dropped. Meanwhile, James Lampton is released from prison after he has served his sentence for the murder of his girlfriend. Commander Blake discovers that his book she wrote the foreword to is rapidly rising in the bestsellers list and she decides to keep her distance from the situation. But different circumstances force the two together and rumours begin to spread. Then a nurse is found murdered and D.C.I. Hedges spots a way to get Commander Blake off the shooting case.
A murderer is using his computer expertise to blackmail hospital doctors, and threatens that a patient will die every twenty-four hours unless his demands are met. Commander Blake has her own personal problems - she is being stalked by the sister of a victim of James Lampton and is stabbed in the arm, and her sister is still fighting her battle against cancer.
The police are still no closer to the blackmailer and Vera and Eileen Judd, the sisters of one of his victims, are chasing compensation for medical negligence. Brenda Thornton has managed to escape from the secure psychiatric unit and leaves a disturbing message on Commander Blake's answerphone. Commander Blake finds her sister snorting cocaine and takes it off her, hiding it in her desk at work. Brenda tries to attack Blake but Sarah gets in the way and it ends with Brenda getting burned by acid. The police discover the the wife and child of Alistair Morrison died in the same hospital as the brother of Vera and Eileen Judd. The sisters deny any knowledge of the Morrison or the blackmail but the police follow them and find that they are working with Morrison. During a police chase Eileen falls to her death.
Detective Chief Constable Blackton begins an investigation into both the Cripps shooting and the investigation into James Lampton, which drags up problems for both Commander Blake and D.C.I. Hedges. Matters become worse when Blackton begins looking into the Commander's affair and the subsequent arrest of Lampton, while she also has to deal with the death of her sister.
Blackton's investigation gets closer to the truth.
Clare Blake's goddaughter Sadie disappears from a nightclub. That same evening, Ronald Aitken manages to escape from a psychiatric hospital, where he has been admitted for 18 years after the murder of his mother. The next morning, Aitken is found covered in blood, with Sadie's lifeless body in his arms. However, it quickly becomes clear that Aitken is not Sadie's killer, but rather an important witness. A witness who is deeply disturbed and has not spoken a word for 18 years.
Together with the Dutch policeman Van Hauten, Clare Blake hunts down a bestial killer who selects his victims from disco guests. For Clare, finding the killer is a personal matter, as her goddaughter is among the victims. A difficult case, because the only witness is a deeply disturbed psychiatric patient who has not spoken a coherent sentence for 18 years.
During the demolition of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, a construction worker makes a gruesome discovery. In a sealed oil cask lies the well-preserved body of a little girl. Who was she? And how did she lose her life? The girl has probably been dead for several years, so Detective Inspector Clare Blake turns the spotlight on the hospital's former patients.
During the demolition of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, a construction worker makes a gruesome discovery. In a sealed oil cask lies the well-preserved body of a little girl. Who was she? And how did she lose her life? The girl has probably been dead for several years, so Detective Inspector Clare Blake turns the spotlight on the hospital's former patients.
The body of a self-made millionaire is found floating in his swimming pool two days after he was arrested by the Serious Fraud Office, having been siphoning funds to fund a lavish lifestyle with a wife and two mistresses. Commissioner Branton asks Blake to oversee the investigation into the death. DCI James soon discovers that the women knew all about about each other, and believes that each had a motive for murder.
A post mortem examination shows that Donald Griffith died from a blow to the neck, and not by drowning, supporting DCI James's theory that one or other of the women in his life had decided to profit from his death. Dutch detective Van Hauten arrives with a possible solution, and designs on Commander Blake.
Part one of two. A priest is brutally beaten and stabbed to death on an east London estate, where bad feeling between residents and police threatens to undermine the investigation. Suspicion falls on local boxing protege Jimmy Bannerman, but progress is hampered when Doug and Clare demonstrate very different attitudes to the brutal competitiveness of the sport. However, a vicious attack on a fellow detective forces them to form a united front. Boxer-turned-actor Gary Stretch stars as Bannerman's…
Part two of two. As the investigation continues, suspicion shifts from Jimmy Bannerman to Terry Donnolly when an eyewitness puts him at the scene of the murder and information on his troubled childhood comes to light. Doug has been coping with his own emotional events at home, but realises he may already know who the real killer could be.
The police team's former colleague Brian Hall becomes a murder suspect.
An attack jolts Brian memory and the focus turns to the mothers from Zoe's maternity class.
Brian becomes convinced that somebody else was in the room with him when he found his mother's body.
