Veteran detective, DCI Jonah Porter, is frustrated at being sent home from work to sit out the COVID-19 lockdown at home. To occupy his mind – and give her some peace from his complaints – his friend, Bernie, suggests that he writes his memoirs. So Jonah delves deep into the past to re-visit his very first murder investigation: a case from 1982, when Margaret Thatcher was still fighting the unions and the Greenham Common women were campaigning to stop cruise missiles being based on UK soil.

Scuffles break out as anti-nuclear demonstrators converge on the centre of Oxford. As the crowd starts to disperse, one of their number drops to the ground unconscious. All attempts to revive him fail. Medical examination suggests that he died of a drug overdose, but was it self-administered or was he murdered in the crush?