At 17 Bloxham Drive, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, a pretty 29-year-old physiotherapist named Rachel James is shot almost point blank through the closed blind of her kitchen window early in the morning of 19 February 1996.

Unfortunately, none of the other residents of Bloxham Drive can recall seeing anything suspicious that morning, including her immediate neighbour Geoffrey Owens at number 15, a newspaper reporter desperate for the scoop on this breaking news story that happened so close to his home.

Chief Inspector Morse, aided by Detective Sergeant (DS) Lewis, soon discovers a cryptic 'seventeenth-century' love poem by John Wilmot and a photograph of Rachel with a mysterious grey-haired man, clues which lead them to the prestigious Lonsdale College, where the rivalry between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the position of Master, to replace Sir Clixby Bream, is about to turn deadly.

It guest starred Richard Briers as Sir Clive Bixby, Maggie Steed as Angela Storrs and Mark McGann as Geoffrey Owens.

Since the subplot of Morse's hospitalisation is omitted, his love interest becomes Adele Cecil (played by Judy Loe), a neighbour of Owens and Rachel.