The police may have a serial killer on their hands when they locate a second body in a site where the first victim was found several months before. The body was trussed up in the same way and had an identical burn mark on his back. There is no apparent link between the first victim, student Michael Haughty, and the second Jason Villers, a probationer at the police college. While the police find evidence that may solve the Otty case, they have nothing on the Villers murder. In a separate case, Harry is approached by the wife of an old university friend who asks him to perform a post-mortem on her husband who died in a fall. Harry finds that his old friend was injecting himself regularly. Leo's family is visiting for a few days but he's constantly being called into work.

When a second police probationer dies at the police college, Sam concludes that they may be dealing with a copycat murder rather than a serial killer. The investigating officer thinks that a fellow probationer may have been responsible for the original murder but the college's commandant, whose son is a student there and soon to be a police constable, would like the reputation of the college protected and the whole thing swept under the carpet. Harry learns that his late friend's wife was prescribing the drugs he was taking and is not quite sure what to do with the information. Leo's relationship with his wife and daughter is stretched thin when he spends most of his time at work and they are left on their own.

When a young British Muslim returns to the UK in secret it is thought she may be connected with drug smuggling, but when a leading anti-fundamentalist Muslim is murdered something more sinister is feared.

As the team try to track down Sarah Begovic, before she and her extremist compatriots can strike again, it becomes clear that she may not be the one who shot Ryman.