Hetty is called in by the Mayor of Titterslow to look for his daughter who has runaway. She has learning difficulties and the Mayor and his wife want the matter of her disappearance to be kept very quiet. Hetty discovers that she left with her boyfriend, Bernard, who also has learning difficulties and that they were making their way to a country hotel.

During a quiet hospital stay for surgery, Hetty uncovers a robbery ring run by nurses and helps clear D.C.I. Adams in a sexual assault frame-up. Meanwhile, Hetty's brother-in-law, Frank, gets mixed up with a lusty widow.

Hetty is approached by Hansi, a German gentleman whose golden years have been hampered by a painstaking search for his sister, whom he lost contact with during World War II.

However, Hetty passes the case off to Geoffrey and Janet, when it comes to light that this is not the only pain Hansi has been suffering. Someone at his retirement community has been making pointed references to Nazism at Hansi, something he had never been a part of. The person is going so far as to deface Hansi's garden in the shape of a Swastika.

Hetty goes undercover as a potential tenant of the retirement community, where she comes into contact with characters that seem to come right out of the mystery novel she's reading: a regimental romantic, a frail woman who has remained alone since her fiance's death in the war, among others. All seem to have motives for harming Hansi.

Geoffrey and Janet find Hansi's nephew, only to find that he is ashamed of his uncle's German heritage and prefers to continue hiding.

Mea