Black police constable Nigel Spenser arrests suspect Makin in the early hours of the morning and then finds himself faced with a brutality charge. Paul Dangerfield is faced with an ethical dilemma when Spenser's superior, DI Ken Jackson, puts pressure on him to help get Nigel off.

Matters are made more irritating for the police surgeon when Ken contacts him in the middle of his first date with sultry barrister Kate Durrani. Things look bad for Nigel until Matthew Evans' body is found in his garden and the property in the Makin's car is proved to have been stolen from Evans' house.

Elsewhere, the case of a suspicious death involving elderly Sarah Harris, one of Joanna's patients, is solved when her husband Brigadier Harris admits to a mercy killing.