Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens has resolved to resign after the new Assistant Chief Constable at the head of the CID has made her feel somewhat inferior in her job. However, her thoughts of resignation are abruptly interrupted when the pro-hunting politician Robert Roughouse suspiciously collapses during one of his vehement speeches at an anti-hunting demonstration.
Sensing that someone has deliberately attempted to murder Roughouse, and seeing an opportunity to prove her worth to the ACC, Detective Martens determinately takes charge of the investigation. Immersed in thoughts about what could possibly lie behind the attempt at assassination, Detective Martens decides to interview Roughouse in hospital. However, rather than aiding in her enquiry, her visit serves only to confuse things further: Roughouse is not there, he has been peculiarly moved in the night by a group of men to the privately owned Masterton Clinic. Detective Martens’s effort to see Roughouse at Masterton is similarly in vain, as she is denied entry. What could lie behind the strange series of events surrounding the Roughouse case? Detective Martens investigates…
