EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

SERIES 1 |2 | 3|

SERIES 1
* Number in parentheses at end of program description is BBCWA library tape number.

1. Buried Lies (part 1)
Forensic Pathologist Dr Samantha (Sam) Ryan moves back to Cambridge from London to take up a consultant's post at The Park Teaching Hospital. Here she will be closer to her family and can tend her new garden. Sam's first case is the tragic death of a six-year-old girl, Sarah Crew, who is thought to have fallen from a ropeswing over a river and drowned. The police surgeon calls in a pathologist as drowning is extremely difficult to
prove. His suspicions are confirmed when during the routine post mortem, Sam finds calcification of the child's bones, which may have been caused by physical abuse in the past. Sam relays her findings to Detective Inspector Tom Adams, who is in charge of the case. When Sarah's mother, Ronnie Crew, and her boyfriend, Gary Phillips, make an impassioned plea for witnesses on the local television news programme, it is seen by Marion Wallace. Marion is in prison, serving a life-sentence for murdering her six-month-old child, Kim, by administering an overdose of tranquillisers. Her former partner was Gary Phillips. After years of silent suffering and both physical and psychological torment from the other inmates, Marion decides to tell the truth. She phones Sam. Adams, meanwhile, is interviewing the family and discovers that the site of Sarah’s death was a popular picnic spot. Despite his instinct that the distraught Ronnie is covering something up, he finds a scene of familial support and collective grieving. He tries and fails to get the 14-year-old son, Dean, to confide in him. “What are you doing with all my police officers?” DS Farmer asks Adams. “Is this a murder investigation? You’re already jumping to conclusions. If someone murdered that little girl, I don’t want them getting away with it.” (1)

2. Buried Lies (part 2)
Sam visits Marion in prison and is surprised to learn about her previous relationship with Gary Phillips. Marion does not deny giving her child tranquillisers in order to stop her incessant crying, but says she did it to save Kim from Gary's furious rages, during which he would pick up the child and shake her. Sam confronts Adams and Farmer (who had led the original investigation into Kim Wallace's death) with this new
information.This is met with initial incredulity by Farmer. But eventually she agrees to Sam's request to exhume the baby's body to see if the injuries to both girls are similar. When Marion subsequently withdraws her
statement, Sam chooses not to relay this to the police. The local community is shocked to learn that Kim's body is being exhumed and turn out in force, despite police attempts to carry out the operation under cover of darkness. Amongst those gathered outside the cemetery are
an extremely tense Gary and an increasingly uncertain Ronnie, now in receipt of a letter from Marion. The exhumation is a slow and tortuous process, while the ensuing post mortem proves harrowing, and dangerous, as so much rests on Sam's findings. She does indeed find the tell-tale signs of calcification which seem to point to the same man abusing the two children in the same way. The police have now discovered that Marion has retracted her statements about Gary, and ask Sam to speak to her. But it soon becomes clear that she is protecting her other son, Michael, from Gary. Out of frustration, Adams verbally assaults Gary in his local pub. In retaliation, Gary ransacks Sam's house, whilst her nephew Ricky hides under the bed. Adams has Gary pulled in for the attack on the house, but there is not enough to hold him without corroborating evidence. Sam takes one last shot and confronts Ronnie, telling her if she stays silent there will be other deaths. Gary returns home and attacks Ronnie for talking to Sam. Dean, her son, can finally take no more and stabs Gary with a smashed vase. Despite Sam's efforts to save his life, the family watch Gary bleed to death. (2)

3. Long Days, Short Nights (part 1)
Dr Sam Ryan is called to the scene of the murder of Mark James, a young man whose badly decomposed body cannot hide the signs of a ritual element to the killing: there is an upside-down cross scored on his back and a ligature around his neck. She clashes with Dr Owen, the police surgeon, and berates him in public because he did not wear his overalls near the body. Mark James lived with the wealthy, young, mixed-race Sebastianne Bird, a man whose reputation for drugs and reckless parties has often brought him to the attention of Superintendent Farmer. Bird is brought in for questioning, along with his girlfriend Fran, but neither are willing nor able to help the police in any way. DI Adams takes an instant dislike to the spoilt, arrogant Bird, so he is particularly delighted when a search of his house reveals a significant piece of evidence – a book of black magic, with detailed pictures of identical ritual killings. Bird is
arrested and Fran goes on the run, unwilling to go back to Bird's house alone. Dr Owen visits Sam to apologise for his mistake at the scene of the crime. Sam feels guilty about shouting at him; his wife recently died after a long battle against cancer. Sam shows Owen the photos of the body, and he points her in the direction of Professor Clarke, an expert in all things ritual. As the police try unsuccessfully to break the confident Bird and his expensive lawyer, Fran is trying to find a way of coping without him and the drugs he supplied. She seeks out Daniel, an old friend who has turned his back on their world. Daniel lives alone and works at night in a factory. Bird is released (the evidence was circumstantial) and goes looking for Sam, wanting to know about the post mortem she performed on Mark James. The next day Sam follows up Owen's suggestion and visits Professor Clarke, who tells her that is this was a true ritual slaying, though the one thing missing is a garland of ivy around the wrist, supposed to stop witches using their powers against the executioners. Clarke recommends Sam see Sebastianne Bird, an ex-student of his who
was an expert on the occult. Sam asks Marcia to help look for a garland of ivy at the murder scene. They find one, and Sam takes it to the police, telling Adams about the Bird connection. But it is no use to Adams. Despite putting a tail on their suspect, they've lost him. (3)

4. Long Days, Short Nights (part 2)
Bird shows up at Daniel's. He wants Fran to go back with him and demands the baby he knows she is carrying inside her. Daniel throws him out, but Fran is rattled. She leaves Daniel and walks through Cambridge as he prepares for work. When she comes back, she finds Daniel has become murder victim number two. This time Sam is able to give the police evidence which links Bird to the murder: there are patterns of a very
distinctive bruising on Daniel's knuckles which correspond to the ring that Bird wears. Bird is arrested, and during a search of his house and gardens, ivy is discovered growing in his greenhouse. Bird tells the police that he has recently been in touch with Sam, rendering any evidence she provides inadmissible in court. Farmer is livid (Bird seems likely to get away again) and calls in another pathologist to take over from Sam. Sam later finds that the bruising on Daniel's knuckles is changing hue and no longer reveals for sure that Bird attacked him – it could be the other way round – but Farmer has stopped listening now. Sam takes the ivy found at the two scenes of crime and the ivy found at Bird's house to Clarke, who tells her that the ivy used in the murders is the wrong sort and a pedant like Bird would never use it. Only the ivy found at his house matched the type used in the occult. Sam goes to Fran, the one person who can explain what has been going on. Fran reveals that there had been a
fifth friend, Louise Owen. Louise, in a drug-crazed moment, had deliberately taken an overdose in front of the others and asked them to watch over her as she died. Sam explains to Farmer how it all fits into place: Dr Owen, the police surgeon, was taking revenge on the students
for letting his daughter die. He'd killed two of them; Bird was in prison.The police storm Owen's house, but he is not there. Fran is alone at Sam's house. But Owen is doing his one day a week as a prison doctor. As Sam, Adams and Farmer rush to the prison, Owen has Bird tied up and screaming. In the final moments Bird torments Owen, telling him his daughter's suicide was not about Bird, the parties nor the drugs, it was about Owen and the emptiness of his own life. As the police break down the surgery door, they find Owen dead in the corner, his throat expertly cut, and Bird crying, tied down on the table. (4)

5. Darkness Visible (part 1)
Dr Sam Ryan is called out in the middle of the night to attend the scene of a death in police custody. The case seems open and closed. Michael Pearce was picked up for obstruction and assault during an argument over police harassment outside a gay nightclub. Sharing his cell was Allen Symonds, middle-aged and drunk after a disastrous attempt to seduce a female colleague. It was Custody Sergeant Claire's last night before retiring, and PC Johns offered to do his rounds while Claire was making his farewell speech. He found something suspicious and called on his colleague Denning to help out. Half an hour later, Symonds woke in his cell next to the brutally beaten body of Pearce. The post mortem reveals that Pearce died from a blow to the back of the head which killed him instantly. Whoever killed Pearce did not realise it and continued to stamp on his body as he lay on the floor, causing multiple fractures and crushed organs. Many of the marks are consistent with the soles of Symonds' shoes. Although Farmer will sanction no cover-up, another team is called in and she can only watch as her officers are interviewed behind closed doors. All the evidence points to Symonds, who claims he was unconscious throughout. Colin, Pearce's lover, refuses to believe that Pearce tried to molest Symonds. The investigation seems to be over. But a note sets Sam back on the trail: they've got the wrong man. She
confronts Colin, who denies sending it. Sam gives the note to Marcia for forensic tests and goes back to the body to re-examine the marks she had previously categorised as unascertainable. One mark now looks different to her; it might not have been made by Symonds' shoe. Farmer instructs Adams to make discreet enquiries around the station; the note was sent on police notepaper. If Adams can supply handwriting samples from all the officers, they can track its author. If he won't, she'll make
suspicions public. Sam is visited by Natalie Johns, the wife of Pearce's arresting officer who has heard Sam is trying to point the finger at the police. She demands Sam leave her husband alone. But the handwriting tests reveal that Johns wrote the note. Sam and Adams visit the policeman's home, but they are too late: Johns' body is floating lifeless in a local reservoir. (5)

6. Darkness Visible (part 2)
Sam cannot state for certain whether PC Johns committed suicide or whether he fell. Farmer's station is in turmoil: not only have they lost a colleague, but the manner of his death points to a cover-up. The only man who seems to know the answers and is willing to talk is Claire, now retired and caring for his sick wife at home. Denning begs him not to talk.
Johns' alibi on the night of the murder was Stevo, a local petty criminal. Adams,working off the record, uses force to get at the truth. Stevo admits he had been offered a deal by Johns and Denning if he said they were with him. Denning finally confesses that Johns had gone back to the station to pick up his wallet. Denning fixed the alibi because otherwise they would have been suspects. But if the police are engaged in a cover-up, then as custody sergeant Claire must have known about it. Adams has always respected Claire, who denies being involved so forcefully and convincingly that both he and Sam believe him. The next day, Sam receives a suspicious package in the post.The bomb squad are called in, and Sam realises what the charred confetti means: someone has sent a policeman's shirt to her. Denning’s wife Patricia is acting scared.
When she tries to contact Sam by phone, Denning goes after Sam himself, trying to run her off the road. This is enough for Adams, who confronts Denning at home.The situation soon escalates: Denning wants to confess but he has a knife pointed at Adams and is desperate enough to use it. He admits that Johns killed Pearce and they had tried to cover it up by stamping on the body in Symonds' shoes. He claims it was all an accident.
Sam has other ideas. She only has one lead – the original note which Johns sent her. She takes this to Natalie, his wife, and confronts her with the rumours: people are saying her husband killed Pearce and covered it up to look like Symonds did it. Natalie breaks down and tells her it was all an accident, someone killed Pearce by accident. And Sam realises who.
As police teams surround Denning's house, Sam arrives with Claire. Claire begs Denning to come out and put an end to the violence. The real truth comes out: it was Claire who killed Pearce.The two officers had covered it
up so that he could retire and look after his dying wife. (6)

7. Sins of the Fathers (part 1)
Sam is called to the scene of a restaurant fire. DI Adams needs her help to identify a badly burnt body and to establish whether it is murder or a tragedy. The victim, Binh, is the father of one of Sam’s students, a Vietnamese girl called Tran to whom she had recently given advice about her arranged marriage to her father's business partner, Nguyen.
As the investigation develops, Sam realises that her advice may well have led to the murder.The body turns out not to be Binh, but Nguyen.With Binh now prime suspect, Sam has to decide whether to tell the police of her relationship with Tran. (7)

8. Sins of the Fathers (part 2)
Tran has disappeared, and in searching for her, Sam finds the case reminds her of the true circumstances of her own father's death.When Tran is finally located, Sam persuades her to talk to the police. She tells an appalling story of her refugee family's nightmare journey on the South China Seas, where their boat was raided and she was raped repeatedly by pirates. Adams is convinced she knows more and follows her until she leads him to her father's hiding place, in the basement of the Park hospital. Adams calls in for help and a siege develops. Tran claims her father is holding her hostage, and the police cannot get near enough to the lift shaft in which they are hiding to know for sure. An interpreter arrives too late to translate what they are saying to each other: Tran comes out of the shaft, the police open up the hiding place as the old man deliberately sets himself on fire. Kerry is caught up in the blast and dies before she can be taken upstairs for emergency treatment. Adams and Kerry have been lovers for some time, a relationship that only ended recently because he was unwilling to commit to their future. Now as she lies on the slab, both he and Sam must confront their own demons and
hidden secrets. Adams tells Sam that it was her silence over the truth about Tran that has led to the death of Kerry, an accusation which Sam finds hard to refute. Sam's own path leads her back to her mother, to the discovery that her father died 15 years ago because she had been taunting him with her sexual involvement with an IRA sympathiser. Her father, an RUC policeman, had been so upset by the encounter he had forgotten to check underneath his car on the day a bomb had been planted.As Sam comes to terms with her own guilt and the need for penance, she realises the same trauma has torn apart Tran's family: when Tran was raped on the South China Seas, her father had to learn to live with the guilt of not protecting her. His penance was to take the blame for the murder. Sam confronts Tran with this truth, that it was she, not her father who killed Nguyen – but she cannot prove it and can only watch her try to pick up the pieces of her shattered life alone. (8)

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SERIES 2

1. Blood, Sweat and Tears (Part 1)
Young, highly successful Asian boxer, Kevin Sharma, drives his car onto a building site. Minutes later, he drags his bruised and bloody body out of a skip, leaving Tony Kennedy, the man he has just knocked down, still inside. Six weeks later, Sam Ryan and Trevor Stewart are in a hotel suite. Retired Superintendent Jack Reeve and boxing promoter Keith Jones are hosting an exhibition boxing match at which Sharma is topping the bill. The fight is over almost before it has begun and Sharma lies dying in the ring. Suddenly Sam finds she has two problems on her hands: how to deal with the reappearance of her former lover (the new Chief Superintendent Peter Ross) and whether Kevin Sharma’s death was caused by more than the previous night’s fight. It seems that everyone has an interest in Sharma and what will happen to the gym at which he used to train. St Paul’s Corinthian Boxing Club has a reputation for bringing on young boxers from poor backgrounds. It was run by Terry
Cross up until six months ago, when he was the victim of a hit-and-run. He is now confined to a wheelchair, unable to communicate, while his daughter Terri struggles on with the support of most of the fighters, which included Sharma and a young black boxer called Charlie. The police accept that Sharma’s death is suspicious and an investigation begins.Terri tries to prove to anyone who will listen that Sharma’s death had nothing to do with the gym. She relies heavily on Keith Jones, a long-standing family
and business friend, to help her fend off the boxing board (Jack Reeve is trying to get her training licence revoked). Just as Sam and Ross finally manage to steal an evening together, news arrives that Terri Cross has been found with her head blown open by a shotgun. (9)

2. Blood, Sweat and Tears (Part 2)
The investigation widens. Sam quickly realises that Terri’s death could not have been suicide but she still has to prove it. Meanwhile the police are fitting together the pieces of a too-coincidental puzzle. At the gym everything is in turmoil, until Keith Jones comes to the rescue. Presenting Charlie with a brand-new car and the promise of future success, he declares that he will take over the running of St Paul’s, look after Terry
and bring in a new trainer:Tony Kennedy. But now the pieces of the puzzle start to fit into place. Charlie drives to the building site, trying to find out what happened on the night of Terri’s death. Ross is convinced that Keith Jones is not the benevolent man he pretends to be and Sam is sure she can place him at the cottage at the time of Terri’s death. Ross and his team go to Peterborough to pick up Kennedy, whilst Sam goes back to the cadaver, picking meticulously over each piece of skin, searching for the forensic clue she needs.A single hair, the root still intact, seen under the microscope proves that Jones must have seen Terri on the
night she died. This, with the other evidence, is enough to prosecute. They now know that Kennedy was responsible, under Jones’s instruction, for Terry’s accident. (10)

3. Cease Upon The Midnight (Part 1)
In the consulting rooms of a large hospital, Mark Tate realises that he is now entering the final stages of AIDS. Later that day, his brother Craig sits waiting for his mother Isobel, hoping that a reconciliation may be possible. In another part of Cambridge, another AIDS sufferer, Stuart Evans, throws a party to celebrate his 40th birthday. The following morning he lies dead. Sam is called in to conduct a post mortem.
Sam quickly deduces that someone injected Evans through a vein in his foot with a lethal dose of diamorphine, then smothered him with a lavender pillow.The police begin tentative enquiries.The consultant in charge of Evans was Dr de Groot. Mark Tate, another of her patients, has also died very recently. DS Ross orders the exhumation of Mark’s
body.The police discover another link between the two dead men: Mark’s brother Craig was also at Evans’ party. (11)

4. Cease Upon The Midnight (Part 2)
The hunt is on for Craig Tate. He was at Evans’ party, he had recently had an argument with his dead brother Mark and in his flat the police have found a quantity of cannabis and a framed picture of Mark, smashed to pieces and covered in blood. But why kill men in the final stages of a terminal illness? Could it have been mercy killing? However, as Ross points out, “Killing people is wrong; there are no grey areas.There is no such concept as euthanasia in English law.” De Groot, with her medical knowledge and Dutch background, becomes the obvious suspect, but she has alibis for both deaths. Craig, meanwhile, has been released and seeks solace from Danny, an old school-friend who is HIV positive. Through Danny, Craig learns more about his brother and his illness. Sam realises that the forensic evidence leads to only one conclusion. Late one afternoon, she visits Reverend Duffy at his parish church. Her suspicions are confirmed but what she finds is a passionately committed man who helped individuals in profound suffering to make a choice and end their lives with dignity, even though it goes against the very nature of his calling. Sam leaves him to collect his papers, see his wife and then turn himself in to the police. After a game of squash, Craig and Danny talk more frankly than either has been able to do before. Danny finds himself
asking Craig to be his witness, should he ever need to call on the services of Reverend Duffy. Suddenly everything about his brother’s death becomes clear to Craig. At the end of the day, at the local church, Duffy is found dead in a pool of blood. Craig is arrested and the truth about
Mark’s death is revealed in a video. (12)

5. Only The Lonely (Part 1)
A young woman walks home alone through the dark streets. Her pace quickens as she thinks she hears someone behind her. Suddenly she turns to confront the shadow, then relaxes as she realises it is someone she knows. Ross is working late because Sam has again cancelled at the last minute. Their relationship has suffered because of their clashes at work and Sam feels responsible for Andrew Duffy’s death. Ross has his team concentrating onto unsolved cases and it seems almost a coincidence when the body of Helen Matthews is found. Her murder is similar to one committed a year ago. Initially everything seems to point to Helen’s husband, Mike, being the culprit. Selway and Speed discover that Helen was planning to leave Mike and fly to Canada with her lover, Alan, the morning after she was killed. Matthews is the manager of a small private airfield and Alan is his Senior Flying Instructor. Everyone in the office knew that Alan and Helen had been having an affair, and Mike must have suspected too. One woman, Carolyn, seems particularly distressed by the news of Helen’s death. There is something strange about Carolyn; she is very shy, avoids looking at people for too long and holds her left hand behind her to hide the fact that she has an extra little finger. Carolyn goes to Heathrow Airport to tell Alan about Helen. She immediately takes control of his grief and, as the police investigation gains momentum, she packs her bags, leaves her emotionally abusive mother, Iris, behind and turns up at Alan’s house with the intention of looking after him. But Alan has other plans; he intends to take up a job offer in Canada – there is nothing for him in England now. Sam and Ross finally spend an evening together. Initially everything seems to go well until Sam finally tells him about Duffy. She leaves his house not knowing if they have a relationship any more. Meanwhile, someone stabs Alan through the heart and then brutally attacks his eyes. (13)

6. Only The Lonely (Part 2)
The police are still convinced that Matthews is responsible for his wife’s death, until one of the team points out to Ross an old case file. Eight years before, a man called Baxter was killed in exactly the same way as Alan. Ross asks Sam to compare the Baxter case with Helen and Alan’s bodies. Sam is losing her patience, but she re-examines the two bodies and discovers not only small deposits of metal fibres on both bodies (as were reported on Baxter’s body at the time), but also a faint sixth bruise, not initially apparent.The suspect must have a sixth finger on the left hand. Matthews is released and the hunt for Carolyn begins. Carolyn is determined to get Alan back, and has already been turned away from the mortuary once. She moves into Alan’s flat, the police having finished collecting all the evidence they needed from it. While Speed and Selway await Carolyn at Alan’s flat and Ross is finishing some work before meeting Sam, Carolyn again confronts Sam in the mortuary, demanding at knifepoint that she release Alan’s body. Sam tries to reason with her and Carolyn admits that not only did she kill her father, Baxter, Helen and Alan, but also why she did it. (14)

7. Friends Like These (Part 1)
Scrub Hill – a soulless, rundown, inner-city estate. Surrounded by streets of houses and low-rise apartments, a large area of waste-ground stretches into scrub at one end and a makeshift children’s playground at the other. Chris Palmer spends much of each day drinking endless bottles of beer while he and his dog watch the world go by. On the ropes of the playground, restless teenagers show off to each other about their schemes to take over the streets and run the community as it should be run. Two of these 15 year-olds, Kelvin and Ben, watch as Palmer talks
to a smaller boy, Lyndon O’Connor. To these boys, Lyndon is marked; he needs to learn who runs the place. Palmer promises to give Lyndon one of the dog’s new puppies if he will come round to the house later to choose it. Lyndon reluctantly goes off with the two boys. Every evening at five o’clock, an old woman called Millicent walks her dog across the waste-ground before going home for her tea. On this same day, she never returns home. Sam Ryan and Peter Ross are spending a quiet lunchtime together when the police radio summons them to the scene of crime. Kelvin and Ben stand shivering by a marked car as DS Speed explains to them that they will have to talk to a child welfare officer about what they have found. The two boys get into the car. After an initial examination, Sam is convinced that the badly beaten body of the old woman has been there some while: between 12 and 36 hours. The police investigations swings into action. Such a mindless and brutal crime demands quick results, but the community of Scrub Hill refuse to help, even though it is one of their own who has been murdered. DI Selway requests a reconstruction and Kelvin and Ben agree to re-enact their discovery of the
body for the cameras. The police are convinced they have their villain: Chris Palmer fits the bill completely – an alcoholic with a record of violent crime. But Sam has little specific forensic evidence and the actual details of how Millicent sustained her injuries have been shielded from the press.
On the afternoon of the reconstruction, Ross decides to release details of the gold watch torn from her victim’s wrist. Sam leaves him to it and heads for the local café. Kelvin and Ben push past her, playing with a bottle of ketchup. Sam is transfixed: the boys are re-creating with sugar teeth and the ketchup bottle the exact details of the crime – details
she knows only the perpetrators would know… (15)

8. Friends Like These (Part 2)
The following day, Sam reports to Ross and Selway what she has seen, but they are sceptical. Overnight a local shopowner has brought forward a videotape showing Palmer selling the missing watch and in their eyes this confirms his guilt. Sam is forced to put her job on the line to prove that they are wrong and that this horrifying crime was committed by two 15-year-old boys. As she pursues the truth, the relationship between Ben and Kelvin deteriorates. Ben is the victim of continuous physical and emotional abuse from his father, Josef, while Kelvin comes from a large single-parent family with an elder half-brother in jail. As with many emotionally deprived kids, they take their anger out on others.
Lyndon, pushed to the edge by their bullying, finally hangs himself. Sam knows she must find Kelvin and help him to admit what he has done.
Sam’s unprofessional conduct in this case is the talk of the police station. Ross finds himself torn between his personal feelings and his professional responsibilities. Appalled by the discovery that Sam has pursued her theory against his express wishes and in doing so has jeopardised any case he might be building, he feels morally obliged to report her to the Coroner and the Police. Sam is devastated. But the boys are arrested and, in a video-recorded interview with Selway, Kelvin confesses. Sam is completely vindicated, but Ross’s lack of faith in her has profoundly undermined their relationship and she brushes off his attempts
at reconciliation. She still has to face the police enquiry which he instigated; she may still lose her job. (16)

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SERIES 3
1. An Academic Exercise (Part 1)
A murder at a Cambridge college leads pathologist Sam Ryan into professional, emotional and physical danger. Dr Annabelle Evans – a personal friend of Sam Ryan and a senior lecturer in genetics at a Cambridge college – is found murdered. New detectives DI Connor and DS Bradley suspect Annabelle’s husband, Martin. But when DI Connor realises that Ryan knows the victim, he is understandably concerned: “Isn’t it possible that you could jeopardise any case we might bring?”
“The head injury wasn’t the cause of death. I believe she was suffocated after being hit,” Sam’s partner,Trevor Stewart tells her. Sam’s certainties about her job are tested as she discovers that the forensic evidence on the corpse is confusing. Her grief and anger destroy her usual clinical detachment. Even DS Bradley is surprised by Sam’s persistence. (17)

2. An Academic Exercise (Part 2)
A student is murdered and the police suspect it is the same person who killed lecturer Annabelle Evans. Sam is too close to the case and her emotion is clouding her judgement. She seeks the advice of her former mentor, Professor Leon Forman. He advises, “Go back to the body. Go back to what is certain.” Ryan believes that the killer is waiter and sometime student Marco Rossi, and that Annabelle’s husband Martin is
innocent. DI Connor learns that his suspicions are wrong about Martin killing his wife because she discovered he was having an affair. It was Annabelle herself who was adulterous. Sam and her partner,Trevor Stewart, deduce that Annabelle’s body was likely to have been frozen, dressed, moved and smeared with animal blood. But why? It is as if the killer is playing a game with Sam, testing her skills. As Leon Forman concludes,“The purpose of freezing the body was to confuse you – and they’ve succeeded.” But is he telling Sam everything he knows? A clever and extremely dangerous killer may well be setting his sights on Sam herself… (18)

3. Fallen Idol (Part 1)
Hidden secrets in a suburban, middle-class family come to light when a 17-year-old girl is found murdered. Gemma Boyd, a glamorous trainee estate agent, is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in an empty house. Mysterious phone calls are logged to her office and home. Are the police looking for a stalker – or a lover? As the police and Sam Ryan investigate, dark truths about the family are brought to light. Sam learns that Gemma’s mother, Suzy, threw her daughter out for having an illegitimate child at the age of 13, and the police unearth the fact that Gemma had already had another child by a boyfriend, a yob named Lee Bennett. Suzy, now remarried to Paul Franklin, is understandably upset about the death,much to the bemusement of Paul’s other daughter, Kate.“What’s she so upset for, anyway? She was horrible to Gemma half the time.” Did she know that her own second husband, Paul, was having an affair with Gemma before her death? And who is making the phone calls, asking for Gemma after she has died? On the domestic front, Sam is delighted to hear that her sister,Wyn, is to be married. But her pathologist partner, Dr Trevor Stewart, is more concerned about her close relationship with surgeon James Reynolds. “He’s rich, successful, handsome, tall. I think you could do better,” he observes.“He’s everything I can’t stand about surgeons. An ego the size of Jupiter, he’s cocky – and I worry about you.” (19)

4. Fallen Idol (Part 2)
When Suzy Franklin’s first husband turns up on her doorstep after being released from prison, she greets him with a knife. “I was with Mick Boyd for the best part of 10 years,” she tells DI Connor, after Mick dies from the
knife wounds.“And every minute of every hour of that time, I was afraid. He killed our daughter, because she told him that she was pregnant by her stepfather.” As the relationship between Suzy and Paul disintegrates into accusation and deceit, Gemma’s 13-year-old stepsister, Kate, remains isolated and desperate for her father’s love. The police are also convinced that Boyd killed his daughter, Gemma – until DS Bradley discovers that Boyd was with his probation officer when the murder was committed. Their attention swiftly turns to another lover of Gemma’s: wild boy Lee Bennett, after Sam learns that he was the last person to have sex with her. Sam has her own theory about what really happened, but it seems that the police are no nearer finding Gemma’s killer. Who killed Gemma? A man from her past, an unknown stalker or someone closer to home? On the domestic front, Sam is no longer convinced that smug surgeon James Reynolds is the man for her, especially after he invites her to America for six months while he works there. (20)

5. Divided Loyalties (Part 1)
A drugs war leads Sam into the murky world of dealers, undercover detectives and police corruption. Sam Ryan is called to a squalid flat where Maggie Collins and her baby daughter are found dead, the mother from a drug overdose, the baby from dehydration. Two weeks later, an explosion kills a local drug dealer. Sam’s post-mortem reveals that the dealer had ingested the same drug as the dead mother. Sam thinks the cases are linked, but her theories are dismissed by DCI Hoskins, Head of the Drug Squad. Undeterred and unable to forget Maggie Collins’ dead child, Sam continues her investigation, which leads her to the enigmatic Andy Fox who, on the surface, is a small-time drug dealer. But Sam discovers Fox’s secret; he is an undercover policeman with his own suspicions about Maggie’s death... (21)

6. Divided Loyalties (Part 2)
After Fox is beaten up, he believes his attackers are themselves police-officers. Does Sam realise her investigation could point to police corruption? When a second drug dealer is murdered, the police consider it the work of vigilantes. But Sam proves a link back to Maggie Collins. It’s a link which leads her to a doctor with a secret past, a corrupt drugs rehabilitation worker and finally DCI Hoskins herself. As the death toll mounts, is the murderer someone who knew Maggie and seeks revenge for her death, or someone seeking to cover up their own involvement in her terrible demise? (22)

7. Brothers in Arms (Part 1)
A farming accident in present-day Cambridge leads Sam to investigate the army cover-up of a murder in Northern Ireland in 1985. When local farmer Phil Nelson dies after a fall under a combine harvester, Sam Ryan thinks the death is accidental. But an anonymous tip-off later points her to evidence that Phil was murdered. DI Connor quickly suspects Owen
Johnson, a farm worker and former soldier, and Phil’s wife, Jane.
Then Ian Neal, a soldier who served in the army with Owen, is murdered. Forensic tests prove it was Neal who sent Sam information about Phil’s death. But was Neal also trying to tell Sam about a crime in the past? A crime in an Irish village called Ballycoola? (23)

8. Brothers in Arms (Part 2)
Sam, now emotionally entangled with DI Michael Connor, continues her investigations into two suspicious deaths. The arrival in Cambridge of Connor’s wife, Helen, could prove embarrassing.“You’d be wrong to think I’m keeping him here,” says Sam acidly. She is more worried about her work and the prospect of a job offer in London. But will Sam solve the mirroring crimes of the past and the present before a deadly personal revenge is enacted? What is the connection between the dead soldier, Ian Neal, and an Army killing in Northern Ireland in 1985? Sam’s investigations take her to Marie Kavanagh, an Irish woman who as a child witnessed the death of a young poacher. Is is a death which links one of the prime suspects, former soldier Owen Johnson, and the recently murdered Ian Neal to another soldier, Alastair Rogers, who has some useful friends and a determination that the past will remain buried.
DI Connor is concerned that Sam is making the case a crusade:“I know you’re upset that you misread the Nelson death. But not every case is a cover-up.” Sam’s response is tart:“You want easy answers, Michael. Well, you won’t get them from me.” (24)

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