Gently and Bacchus investigate when elderly Alfred Peachment is found murdered in the grounds of the large house where he lived alone, formerly a children's home which he superintended but now closed for several years. The house was being sold, against his wishes, by a committee headed by his ex-wife and her brother, the local doctor, to the seemingly callous property developer Cora Davidson. Harry, Alfred's mute, simple-minded gardener, is the chief suspect and he attacks Bacchus. Only overly helpful local copper Blacksmith seems able to communicate with the boy, causing Bacchus to resent him. A discussion with an old flame leads Gently to suspect that Peachment may have been a paedophile, abusing children in his care, and that any of the suspects may be acting alone or as a group of avengers, to punish him for past misdeeds. Written by don @ minifie-1

Audrey Chadwick's corpse is found on a church altar and, whilst she told her parents and landlady she was a nurse, the not so happily married Bacchus recognizes her as a hostess at a Playboy-style drinking club he has used, called Rakes, run by brash American Patrick Donovan. Audrey had had an abortion - news to her volatile boyfriend - and the doctor who performed it tells Gently it was because she had been raped. Margaret Bishop, an anti-abortionist, heads a group picketing to close Rakes but her husband is Donovan's lawyer and very much at odds with Margaret's views. He admits intimacy with Audrey but denies rape, nonetheless making him the prime suspect. After the murderer has been unmasked the club is shut down and Gently, having earlier accused Bacchus of being out of condition for his youth, bizarrely takes him on in a charity boxing match. Written by don @ minifie-1

Following a tip-off Gently and Bacchus acquire a suitcase full of stolen passports dropped by petty crook Jimmy Cochran. Cochran's old flame Maggie Alderton worked in the office where they were issued and is found raped and strangled next day, the father of her child being identified as one Thomas Ali, for whom she was apparently trying to secure a passport. Cochran is in a turf war with some Arab boys, also involved in dodgy passports and Maggie's transvestite boss is also less innocent than he first appears. However, facts prove Ali and Cochran to be father and son and neither has killed Maggie, a pawn in the whole scam. With the real murderer hanged, Gently, a veteran of the 1959 Notting Hill riots in London, nonetheless warns young Bacchus of the perils of racial intolerance. Written by don @ minifie-1

Days before the 1964 General Election manager Patrick Fuller is found dead and the safe robbed at the flour mill he once owned but, financially strapped, he sold for a pittance to prospective Labour M.P. Geoffrey Pershore. Fuller's widow knows he was in an affair with a colleague's wife and the surly foreman, who blackmailed them, is the next corpse to be discovered. Bacchus discovers that Fuller was a Mason and infiltrates the local lodge to find a witness, leading Gently and himself to not one but two killers. Written by don @ minifie-1