Schoolteacher Barry Jackson's wife Sophie is very ill and not capable of driving a car because of it. Nevertheless she takes the car one day and causes a bit of mayhem in Aidensfield. Soon afterwards Jackson receives threatening letters, and during a school concert somebody sets his house on fire killing Sophie. Malcolm Brown checks into the Aidensfield Arms with his daughter Vicki, but Gina suspects that that something is wrong with them. Apart from that there is an extra resident at the pub - a carrier pigeon, and Gina soon discovers it is very fast bird indeed and they challenge Greengrass to a pigeon race.

There has been a dance at the youth club in Aidensfield and 15-year old Maureen asks PC Bradley if he would walk her home. Bradley thinks it is only a schoolgirl prank and tells her to ask a boy of her own age. She has a crush on him, but she also claims that somebody is following her. And a couple of nights later Maureen disappears on her way home from the club. The new sergeant, Raymond Craddock, arrives at Ashfordly police station. He is very narrow-minded and goes strictly by the book and when his mind has been made up it stays that way - even if he is wrong.

The vicar Harold Greaves grows marihuana in his greenhouse because it brings relief to his disabled wife Joyce. He takes on Jenny's brother Steve, who pays his sister a visit. But unlike his sister Steve is a nasty piece of work and when he finds out about the drug he does not hesitate to sell some of it to a group of mods from Whitby, who has been stirring up trouble in the village. When the vicar finds out Steve threatens to expose him if Greaves says anything or refuses to supply him. One of the mods, Kelley, takes a fancy to David and moves in with him and persuades him to become a mod himself.

There is counterfeit money in circulation in Aidensfield - and lots of them. The money was made by a gang run by Jim Bly, but neither Bly nor his girlfriend Ruthie Abbott were ever captured, and DS Dawson thinks they may be in the area. Sergeant Miller gets a surprise visit from his wife. Her train broke down just outside Ashfordly and now she has been left stranded. But the good sergeant is none too pleased to see her. Especially not after she has been caught shoplifting. And she is not making things easier for him. Bernie reads in the newspaper that his big idol Judy Garland got married in London and plans to settle down in a British country house - maybe even Yorkshire. And indeed an American woman moves into one of the cottages with her husband. She calls herself Judy Dean, but soon everybody knows who she really is - or do they? Anyway Aunt Peggy cannot help cashing in on it.