The story follows ex-Sun Hill officer Claire Stanton, now a DI, as she goes to Australia to try and extradite ex-DS Don Beech for the murder of his colleague John Boulton.
Unfortunately, Brown claims to have been an informant for former Sun Hill alumni Don Beech, which makes Chandler determined to drop the case at all costs.
Part One: Smith and Klein attend to Mr Kennedy, whose house and garden shed have been attacked by vandals repeatedly over the past few weeks.
Cryer suggests a 'zone of tolerance', a non-residential area where the prostitutes can work without upsetting the locals, and manages to convince the girls to give it a try.
Part One: New Area Car driver Des Taviner makes an instant impression on the relief when he starts work on the night shift at Sun Hill, with his no-nonsense attitude and sharp wit impressing the likes of Page and Hayward, however Stamp is wary of his rival’s methods, having briefly worked with Taviner whilst on secondment to the Robbery Squad.
Two drunk girls from a hen party brought in by Stamp and Hayward give Glaze an unexpected break in a series of rapes on the Jasmine Allen estate, but it come too late to stop another attack when residents report a woman screaming on Canley Fields, leading to the entire night shift racing to the scene to track the woman down.
Singh poses as a car thief, and is soon initiated with the gang, even gaining a meeting with North's boss, Jennifer Salter.
As he closes on a sale to buy a flat owned by an elderly friend, Doreen Tyler, she changes her mind at the last minute, so he moves in with Stamp.
Hollis's intuition gives CID an important lead on a planned armed robbery, but his uniformed colleagues conspire against him to have Klein organise the Section House closing party instead of him.
Upset that his colleagues no longer value his credibility, Hollis decides to skip the party and goes round to visit Doreen, only to find her lying on her living room floor with head injuries.
When he confides his reasons to a young woman who was threatened by the gunman, he is horrified to find she was a journalist, and the story is published in the Sun Hill Gazette.
After a few close calls, they arrest their prime suspect, a motor mechanic named Alan Merrick, who has a history of firearms offences.
Part One - The Dark Side: Hayward breaks down during a talk with primary school pupils, when he gives a powerful speech about the death of his sister to teach them the dangers of drugs.
Part One - Going Underground: Chandler is approached by Chief Inspector Morys from the Football Intelligence Unit when an undercover officer is stabbed on Sun Hill's patch after a game.
Chandler and Morys start a joint operation to infiltrate the gang responsible, Britannia, spearheaded by former police officer Julian Napper.
Part One: After faking his death in Australia, Beech returns to London and pulls off a £6.5 million pound safety deposit box robbery, using a car bomb as a distraction.
Posing as 'Matthew Boyden' from Sun Hill, Beech once again makes good his escape and takes Stanton to an underground bunker where Frankie urges him to kill her.
However, Stanton manages to make radio contact with an outsider and he alerts DS Peters and DCI Belmarsh from the Robbery Squad, who begin a search for the underground bunker where she is being held.
Part Five: Beech manages to get himself back to London after the explosion at his bunker, but suspects that Frankie has double-crossed him, so he finds a new ally in the form of Rachel, Tommy's granddaughter.
When Beech discovers that Frankie is trying to broker the deal without him, he goes in search of his former partner, only to be cornered by Giorgio, who turns up at the handover and demands his share of the money.
As Klein and the rest of relief celebrate his birthday, Leroy asks a stunned Rickman to leave Sun Hill and move to South Africa with him.
As he angrily heads off to the airport, leaving behind a distraught Rickman, his fingerprints are found on a gun used to murder an undercover NCS officer, DS Hanbury.
Part One - Lifelines: Hagen, still hurting over her breakup with Boyden, is paired with Stamp to investigate the mugging of pensioner Archie Dodds, who has had his wallet taken by a youth.
She and Taviner find they have a lot in common, but it soon becomes clear he is only being friendly to get her into bed, and she delivers a swift knee into the groin when he makes a cruel comment about her dating history.
Part One - Night Games: Liz Rawton returns to her old stomping ground Sun Hill to head up an operation into catching a dangerous rapist who has committed over 20 attacks.
Meanwhile, Ackland is unable to attend the final of the "Ask a Policeman" quiz hosted by Tony Blackburn, forcing Monroe to replace her with Spears.
Part Three - Compulsion: Rawton addresses the team, and puts forward the theory that rape victim and informant Terri's death was not suicide, but murder.
On her return, Spears spots a man lurking outside her flat, but he turns out to be her old friend Eddie, who works for the Thames Valley police.
The following day, whilst searching suspect Bennett's home, Spears is suspicious when Rawton finds evidence on a shelf Cork claimed not to check.
Clarke feels disillusioned as she faces a CIB grilling for her savage attack on Bennett during the undercover op, but she gets a further shock when an emotional Spears admits what Cork did to her.