Episode list

Dalziel and Pascoe investigate the death of Donald Fitzgerald who is found the morning after his retirement party bludgeoned to death on a golf course driving range with three golf balls shoved into his mouth. He had returned home after the party to tell his wife he was leaving her and then left the house, taking with him a new golf club he received as a retirement gift. Suspicion falls on Danny Macer who was recently acquitted in a murder case with striking similarities. When they find a key on Fitzgerald that leads to safe deposit box with a 100,000 pounds, they begin to wonder exactly what their ex-colleague was up to. A second murder leads them to one of their own.

Having recovered from his wounds Andy Dalziel returns to the fold just as Peter Pascoe is in the midst of an undercover operation trying to capture a serial killer. Peter corners the man who then jumps to his death but the only witness turns out to be Abbie Hallingsworth who was kidnapped 19 years before and presumed dead. More difficult however is that her kidnapper, Gus Mullavey, confessed to her murder and is still in prison, though now on his deathbed. Dalziel has a great deal of difficulty in accepting the situation and Abbie's family has mixed feelings about her return, especially one of her two brothers who is simply not prepared to accept her claim. DNA testing confirms her identity but the police soon have a murder investigation on their hands when Abbie is found dead. When they learn that one-third of the Hallingsworths' considerable family wealth was in trust for Abbie, they focus on Abbie's brother David as the most likely suspect. It turns out that nothing is as it seems, however. Meanwhile, Peter's private life is in something of a turmoil after he and wife Ellie separate.

Inspector Pascoe's grandmother dies, and he sets out to discover the truth about his grandfather: why he disappeared during WWI. Pascoe is falsely told that his grandfather was a deserter but continues his quest. An animal rights group, in a seemingly unrelated incident, attacks a pharmaceutical firm's labs. The leader (Amanda Marvell) escapes to the woods nearby and falls over a skeleton. Dalziel is attracted to Marvell but relentlessly sets out to solve the murder of her disciple, though her Jeep is involved. Flashbacks are used to show the threads linking the two cases. The skeleton is found to have arsenic in the bones; Marvell's brother's death in Africa is suspected not to be accidental; Dalziel discovers the theft of experimental data from the lab, showing it not to have a purely beneficent medical mission in Africa; and Pascoe proves his grandfather was innocent.

At an archaeological dig of an ancient Roman ruin, Dr Janet Rix and her students uncover a recently buried body. The pot-mortem reveals that the body had been there for several months. The archaeological sites sits in the path of a bypass under construction and this creates a good deal of friction between the road crew and the excavators, who have a row in the local pub. When one of the road crewmen, known as Tarzan, is found with his head bashed in, the police assume that Rix or her colleagues are to blame. As the case progresses however, Dalziel and Pascoe find that they may be dealing with multiple murderers and that one of the crimes may be linked to a murder that occurred many years before. The only problem is that Andy worked hard to convict someone for that older crime and now faces the possibility that an innocent man was sent to jail.

The body count is rising. Dalziel and Pascoe focus their investigation on the Heritage Centre and those who work there.

What happened to little Mary? Eight years ago, the town was sure they knew: Benny, a boy with a metal plate in his head, who also disappeared. When another little girl is gone, Dalziel's squad investigates, but Pascoe is sidelined by his daughter's meningitis. Mary's bereaved family adopted Betsy (now called Elizabeth), who has become a well-known singer; she has come home to sing a requiem for Mary. Townspeople claim to have seen Benny; his aunt had a visitor asking about money close to her death; Betsy's fathers (birth and adopted) and even little Rose Pascoe are crucial witnesses.

The two detectives investigate a string of bizarre, seemingly accidental deaths occurring over three decades which somehow or other all involve the same man.

Back home to act as best man at an old army friend's wedding, Peter Pascoe soon finds himself in the midst of a murder investigation. His friend, Sgt. Ian Henslowe marries Jill Lowry unifying the two largest farming and land-owning families in the area. The wedding day is not a happy one however when another army mate, Cpl. Martin Wilkie, is found dead in the pig barn. Wilkie was a bit of a loudmouth constantly insulting others, particularly Peter's overweight cousin, Terry Pascoe. When it's revealed that the new bride was also having an affair with Wilkie, and may be pregnant by him, there's an even greater to do. For Andy Dalziel, who has been fretting about his health and the need for a medical exam, Peter is a suspect like the others and tells him to stay out of the case. Two other murders - made to look like a murder-suicide - provides the police with additional evidence. Andy also becomes interested in a group of illegal immigrant farm workers who were rounded up the night before the wedding and the fact that some of the illegals may have been missed.

When the excavation at a construction site unearths a skeleton, Det. Supt. Dalziel and DI Pascoe have a murder to solve. The construction is at an abandoned coal mine that was the site of a major incident during the coal miners' strike in 1984. It also brings back memories for Andy, who had been posted there early in his career. It also brings him into contact with his his sister, Harriet Clifford, from whom he has been estranged for several years. Many in the community know Andy, and his return is anything but welcome. The skeletal remains are identified as those of George Briley, a police constable whose head had been bashed in some 15 to 20 years ago. Briley was working undercover during the strike but the police subsequently learned he was bent as well, having stolen, so it was believed, a large sum of the strikers' money. Peter Pascoe receives information that suggests Andy may have benefited in some way as well.

The police have a murder investigation on their hands when body parts and medical waste are found in a local lake. The waste is traced to Wetherton Royal Infirmary and Dalziel focuses on a missing nurse, Leanne Proctor. She had recently leaked information to a local newspaper about a waiting list scam at the hospital. The hospital itself is under threat of closure with staff taking sides on the issue and with a local contractor hoping to profit from building a new private hospital. Throughout this time, Peter Pascoe is himself a patient at the WRI's neurological ward following a severe accident during a police chase. He becomes quite attracted to one of the nurses, Shannon Hayes.