DCI Banks assigns DS Cabbot as Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) on a case involving the mutilated body of a woman found on the Yorkshire moors, while he investigates the murder of teenager Hayey Daniels, whose body has been found in a storage room in a dark alleyway. Cabbot discovers that her victim was Lucy Payne. When DC Templeton's body is discovered in the same alleyway, killed in the same way as Lucy, Cabbot becomes convinced that the murders are connected. The suspect in the Daniels murder case is cleared, so Banks must establish how the real killer was able to avoid detection.