A strong episode this as the suspects are long and varied. A woman Bella Furness has been murdered, an environmental investigator Anne Preece finds the body. Bella was opposed to selling her land to Godfrey Waugh, a local businessman who wants to dig a quarry. Her stepson now Bella is out of the way now decides to sell the land and put his father in an old people's home.
When Vera investigates she finds that Anne Preece is also having an affair with Waugh, who is determined to buy up the surrounding land, however he is confident that it just upping the price that matters. Vera also has to contend with a distraught a mother who believes Bella had abducted her son many years earlier. It was a case that Vera had worked on.
There area lot of strands here which come together, even a side issue about Joe being stressed about his wife and kids as he confides in Godfrey Waugh's wife. We even have an anti capitalist radical with a violent streak who was friends with Bella.
Vera stoically investigates, there is regrets about the the abduction of the child, an investigation where the parents were initially suspected. Yet Vera is always cunning and believes that the proposed excavation area holds clues to the mystery.