After being duped into taking part in a kidnapping in Germany, Jackson returns to Edinburgh feeling dejected, though he does acquire a dog. He is approached by Hope McMaster, an adoptee anxious to locate her birth mother, which leads Jackson to see retired cop Ray and his wife Maggie,who knew the adoptive parents. Soon afterwards an anonymous caller warns him not to investigate Carol Braithwaite whom, Jackson learns, was a prostitute killed in 1979. He visits the case officer, Tracy Waterhouse (played by Victoria Wood), now a security guard who has illegally taken in Courtney, the silent child of another prostitute, the latest victim of a serial killer. After corrupt ex-police chief Lomax threatens Jackson to back off, Tracy and her former colleague Barry explain that after Carol's murder, Lomax appears to have spirited away her son Michael, and Jackson meets another private eye engaged by Michael to learn what happened. Barry tells Jackson exactly what happened when Carol was murdered leading Jackson to work out who killed her. To assuage his guilt over the kidnapping, he gives his fee to Tracy to start a new life with Courtney.

Jackson arrives at his office to find Deborah has quit and young Aiden Kelso is waiting for him. Aiden's mother Isla was understood to have been the victim of serial killer Philip McCrory but recently the dying McCrory had owned to all the murders bar Isla's and Aiden wants the case reopened. Aiden's father Ian is evasive, painting a saintly picture of Isla to protect Aiden, when she was actually loose living and a drinker. Having been fleeced by his girlfriend Charlotte, who he learns is a professional con artist, Jackson bumps into old flame Julia, now heavily pregnant and who inadvertently gives him a lead which results in the arrest of Isla's killer. Jackson also tracks down recalcitrant Egyptian teenager Samira Minyawi on behalf of her controlling father, as Minyawi helped in the German kidnapping. Having rescued Samira from her violent boyfriend, Jackson dates the recently divorced Louise Munroe but feels he cannot commit to a relationship with her and goes home, eventually ending up delivering Julia's baby.