A vital witness to a gangland killing goes missing before she can give evidence in court, and frost finds himself under pressure to find her and her son before a hitman can get to them. Frost thinks he has won the lottery but he has lost his ticket!

Denton's last remaining quarry is vandalised. Frost finds a baby in his office and is delighted to discover it belongs to DS (previously WPC) Hazel Wallace. He gets Hazel to look into some burglaries that have been occurring just after removal jobs have been completed. At the quarry a second body is found, which causes them to call the police. The only witness to the murder is an autistic boy, who immediately becomes a prime suspect. Frost finds out about some dodgy dealings in the past between the quarry owner and his former partner. The boy escapes through a window and the officers on duty get a severe telling off.

DI Frost pursues a paedophile suspected of abducting a 10-year-old boy from a Denton Town football match. Initially, Frost is unsure whether the lad simply ran away or is genuinely the victim of a kidnapping, but when the boy is found dead and a man is found dead following a hit and run incident, the identity of the latter creates a frightening link to the missing child. When a second child turns up dead in a deserted quarry, Frost is in a desperate race against time to stop a third child being murdered. While Frost is contending with this a note arrives from a secret admirer and Mullet tries to push Frost into a promotion he doesn't want.