A tobacco warehouse has been raided and a van used by the raiders is found burned-out on Berley Moor. The police manage to close off all the roads in the area and the perpetrators, Ned and Pete, hideout at Greengrass' house. When he finds out what they have been up to he wants them out of the house, but Ned leans on him to give them shelter. Clive Thompson is in Aidensfield to paint. He discovers that his daughter Cathy is in love with the landlady's son Stephen and he takes her home the next day, but she makes off to meet him. Jo convinces her mother to go to hospital for some test to find out what the matter is with her.

DC Bradley is tipped off by his informant Harry that Vic Hawking and Len Dowd have bribed the driver of a bullion van to make an unscheduled stop so that they can rob it of its shipment of gold. The police lay in wait for the robbers, but something goes wrong when the van stops at a different place than it was supposed to. Gina is not the only pretty face at the Aidensfield Arms anymore. Her niece Susie got in with a bad crowd and her mother wants her to get away for a while and stay with her aunt at the pub. But Susie is not that keen on getting away from anything and especially not from her boyfriend Jamie, who follows her to Aidensfield. He has escaped from custody and PC Crane gets more than his hands full keeping an eye on Susie in order to catch him. Dr. Merrick's waiting room needs redecorating and Vernon Scripps and his colleagues are more than happy to do it for her. Since Bernie is too busy the task goes to David.

David is with Aunt Peggy on one of her 'nightly expeditions' when he sees a shooting star. Soon thereafter there's a big explosion and rumours of a meteorite crashing down in the forest. The police finds traces of a more earthly origin though. Nurse Cassidy finds a man lying semi-unconsciously with burns and blast injuries at the roadside and takes him to hospital. Sergeant Miller and DS Dawson are convinced that this is no coincidence and PC Mason goes undercover to investigate Larry Fowler, who is said to sell dynamite to armed robbery teams from the quarry where he is the manager. Aunt Peggy on the other hand doesn't mind having a rock from outer space falling practically into her - or maybe rather Lord Ashfordly's - back yard. Not after hearing that space rocks are quite valuable. And she does nothing to prevent David from thinking aliens have landed. On the contrary.