When a suspected serial killer jumps to his death from the roof of a homeless hostel, the only witnesses are Pascoe and a homeless girl, who goes by the name of Abbie Hallingsworth—who has been missing for nineteen years. DC Shaz Kendall, on attachment to Wetherton CID, invites Abbie to stay while she tries to learn more about the events leading up to her disappearance. However, her coy tactics of introducing her to her long-lost family lands her in hot water with Dalziel.
The death of businesswoman Georgina Webster, who falls from her horse during a fox hunt, turns out to be more than an accident when the leader of the hunt is sent a letter to that effect. Investigating, Dalziel and Pascoe discover someone planted gunpowder in a hedge shortly before her death, causing her horse to be startled and throw her off. As the local SABS group come under investigation, Dalziel discovers that the daughter of the huntsmaster is in fact a saboteur, and may hold more of a grudge than her compadres.
Dalziel and Pascoe are tasked with investigating four suspicious deaths occurring within hours of one another: the first is of a French art dealer, who appears to have either slipped or was pushed from the side of a motorway bridge; the second, a Russian national whose coffin is found floating just off the coast of Whitby; the third, a Japanese tourist, found stabbed atop a famous beauty spot mentioned in Wuthering Heights; and the fourth, an East German agent, seeking a German academic's writings containing secret information the Stasi don't want published.
When high court judge Jerry Chance is shot dead at point blank range, the immediate suspect is large-scale drugs importer Kenneth Barbour, whom Chance was recently trying for the importation of £15 million of street heroin. Barbour swears blind he isn't responsible, so as Dalziel and Pascoe look a little deeper, they discover that Chance was involved in homosexual relationships with young men.