Sixty-three-year-old night shift cabinetmaker Robby Burns is murdered while taking an illicit smoke break outside the railway carriage maintenance sheds adjacent to the beach at Hockley, a quiet seaside town on England's south coast. Professional isolationism among the too many government agencies involved, resulting in an inadequate response to the increasingly frequent landings of illegal immigrants on south coast beaches leads Detective Inspector Dibs Beacon to suspect that the murder might not be personal but associated with the old man's observation of such a landing and the need to preserve the secret of local involvement.