On a wild and stormy night on England's south coast, ambitious young police constables Rutherford Barnes and Harriet Holden are doing the rounds when they see a burglar fleeing the scene of the crime. And the location is Harriet's house. The ground floor is ransacked. Scrawled in red across one wall are the words: DEAD COPS SLEEP LONG. Then a few days later, Harriet's battered body is discovered in a shabby seafront hotel. Newly promoted to detective, Barnes vows to discover who killed his partner, and why.