Sun, Sep 27, 1992
Having attended a police conference in China Wexford joins a group of British tourists in Hong Kong including former barrister Adam Knighton and his wife Adela, not the most loving of couples. on return to Kingsmarkham he learns that Mrs. Knighton, who lived nearby,was murdered in an apparent robbery. Burden suspects that an ex-con with a grudge against Mr. Knighton may be responsible but draws blanks. Wexford is convinced that the death is linked to something that happened in China and interrogates the holidaying party.
Sun, Oct 18, 1992
Tom Peterlee, a member of a large family who live in three adjoining cottages, is murdered. Eva, his mother is quite cavalier in reaction to his death in Wexford's opinion and other family members are no more helpful. Heather, his widow, seems dumb with grief and his brother and meek sister-in-law are similarly evasive. Family friend Carol is more forthcoming, providing Heather with an alibi, but Wexford is sure one of the Peterlees is a killer. Burden has problems of his own when his daughter starts dating a married man and a series of ramraids in Kingsmarkham add to Wexford's problems.
Sun, Dec 27, 1992
John Creevey has recently separated from his wife Jennifer and is still obsessed with her and Peter Mullin, the new man in her life. Many years ago his sister Cherry had been murdered and her fiancé, Mark Simms, now John's best friend, had been the prime suspect. When the police reopen the case and Simms is again under suspicion, John begins to doubt his friend's innocence, until Mark tells him of sordid details about Cherry's promiscuous past - and her relationship with Peter Mullin. When John discovers a series of coded messages hidden beneath a railway bridge, he throws himself into solving them, as a way of taking his mind off Jennifer. He believes that he has uncovered the communications of a gang of terrorists, not realising that it is just schoolboys at rival public schools, playing at being spies. To punish Peter Mullin for breaking up his marriage, and wrongly suspecting that he may have killed Cherry, he plants a coded message for the "terrorists", ordering them to "eliminate" Peter. In doing so he unwittingly sets in motion a chilling meeting between Peter Mullin and one of the schoolboys, Charles Mabledene, which reveals some very unsavoury things about Mullin's feelings towards young boys...