- Hathaway has been promoted to inspector after an extended break, and Lewis is enjoying retired life until he's asked to team up with his old colleague again.
- As a result of a staff shortage, DI Lewis returns to the force temporarily. Newly promoted DI James Hathaway and DS Lizzie Maddox investigate a case of arson on a private hunting ground owned by Tom Marsten and neurosurgeon Alistair Stokes. They had purchased the grounds from Gillian Fernsby who still lives there in a small house. She is only one of several suspects however when Stokes is subsequently found shot. Junior surgeon Simon Eastwood had a difficult relationship with Stokes after he complained that Stokes had consumed alcohol before he performed an operation on Rizwan Nooran leaving the lad a vegetable. It's rumored that Eastwood may have been having an affair with Stokes' wife Erica. Nooran's parents now care for him. Both Marsten and Stokes had also been receiving threats from animal rights activists. Marsten is arrested after the police learn he had recently increased the partners' life insurance and ballistics confirms it was Marsten's rifle that fired the fatal bullet. Lewis thinks they've got the wrong man.—garykmcd
- A brain surgeon is murdered. Hathaway, now a Detective Inspector, is the investigating officer. Lewis is retired and living with Dr Hobson but is coaxed out of retirement by Chief Superintendent Innocent to help Hathaway on the case. The doctor caused a boy to end up in a vegetative state: could that be the reason behind the murder?—grantss
- A firebomb is thrown into a house. Hathaway and Maddox are assigned the investiatio and examine the ruins. Lewis, retired, is considering working on his boat. Maddox reports the home was owned by Tom Marston and his business partner Alistair Stoke, a neurosurgeon, who together run a private hunting ground. He suspects animal rights activists. Gillian Fernsby, a former owner of the ground, stops by. She still lives with her son and daughter on the land.
Hathaway goes to an animal rights protest at Oxford, and interviews Jess Tallison, a protestor associated with an animal rights website opposing the hunting grounds - they've been unable to trace the source. Back at the hunting ground, Stoke is shot while putting feed out to attract animals. Innocent convinces Lewis to work on the case. Laura Hobson tells Hathaway that the bullet had come from long distance, but Hathaway realizes there was no line of sight for long distance. Gillian Fernsby claimed to have been watching television. They check Chris Fernsby's alibi, and Gillian explains that she had seen a fight between the two partners. At this point Lewis shows up, to Hathaway's surprise. They realize Innocent has set them up to work together again. Hobson is annoyed. Lewis interviews Stoke's wife. She is alibied by Simon Eastwood, a junior surgeon who has been staying with her. Eastwood explains that Stoke had operated on a boy, Nabeel Nooran, while drunk, resulting in Nooran ending up a vegetable. However, Stoke denied drinking before the operation. At the station, Ballistics shows that it was actually a close-range shot. Stoke's attractive young wife turns out to be the main beneficiary of the estate. Upon interviewing Nooran's parents, Hathaway finds that they had been taking care of their son the whole time.
Lorraine Fernsby, Gillian's daughter, is a nurse who worked with Stoke. She has been given a 50K share of the inheritance. She explains that Stoke's wife had quit her nursing job when Stoke had asked her to marry him. The website was started weeks after Nooran's accident; they wonder if it was started as revenge. Hathaway reinterviews Nabeel Nooran's mother Ayesha, an Oxford teacher, who reveals that she and her husband Rizwan were going through a divorce when the accident occured. The father works with computers and so could have built the website. It turns out that Marston's finances are chaotic although he kept a life insurance policy on Stoke up to date, and when they find that the bullet that killed Stoke was from Marston's rifle he is placed under arrest.
Marston has an asthma attack while being interviewed. Hathaway tries to join him in the ambulance but is overruled by Innocent and Lewis; he is most annoyed when Marston escapes near the hunting ground. They ask the Fernsbys about possible hiding spots but they deny any possibilites. But Marston is quickly found, shot, in a nearby culvert. The bullet had also been fired from Marston's gun - very surprising since the rifle has been in police custody the whole time. They verify the gun is still in the evidence room and discover that Marston was a witness in the Nooran trial, swearing that Stoke was sober the whole day. Hathaway suggests that the bullet has been prepared to fake Marston's rifle. Lewis confronts the Noorans, and notices a nursing call made with the initials T.D. They then examine an Oxford pool that has been broken into, discovering a bullet that had been shot into it in an attempt to prepare the frameup. Lewis confronts Gillian Fernsby about pretending not to know about the culvert.
Lewis and Hathaway returns once again to the Noorans, knowing that they've both been out of the house, based on the nursing call. Rizwan explains that they had visited a lawyer concerning a possible termination of their son's life. They then return to Marston's wife, where they find Simon Eastwood, drunk. They send him home. The wife denies an affair with him.
Maddox returns an air rifle to the Fernsby's, and finds them burning the hard drive of a computer, which she removes from the fire pit. They find the source for the web site on the drive. Gillian Fernsby confesses that she was trying to re-acquire the land and had set the fire, but denies shooting either partner.
Ayesha Nooran takes Nabeel to the hospital, but when they return home Rizwan is dead. Hobson diagnoses a hanging, and that he had been moved after death. She thinks he has killed himself and the family disguised it as a murder. They try to trace a phone call Ayesha made and also match gray paint from a tool used to break in to the house with a tool used to break into the pool.
Maddox interviews Ayesha. She admits finding Rizwan hanging, but when they ask who helped move him she demands a solicitor. An alarm sounds at the pool just as they are about to find who Alesha had called. At the pool, they find a diver looking for the bullet - it is Lorraine Fernsby, who confesses to the murders and the frameup. Known as the "back seat surgeon", she had not felt Stoke to be a capable surgeon any longer, and was also jealous of Stoke's wife. Ayesha had called her for help after finding Rizwan, hoping to conceal the suicide for life insurance purposes, and she had helped move the body. Lorraine is arrested.
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