Hawk is with his farmer friend, Martin Falconer when the latter finds a titanium plate, the kind used to heal broken bones. Martin asks Hawk to find the body it must once have been attached to. Hawk isn't keen. His charming, egotistical son Jaikie comes to England for the premiere of a film he's starring in. Although on a publicity junket, Jaikie's far more interested in the body which he believes must have been dumped on Martin's land. Dr Laura Peterson learns from an engraving on the plate that it was made specifically for a young man called Patrick Scott who broke a metatarsal while ski-ing. A day later she discovers that all trace of the injury and the person who sustained it have been wiped from the NHS computer. Who wants the world to believe that Patrick Scott never existed? The chances are that he's been murdered. The certainty is that Hawk will find his killer.