In remote Sutherland, a 32-year-old father of two has been missing for 48 hours. Being a bushcraft expert, he went out with only a small amount of provisions and the clothes on his back. With little information about his planned route, the local officers unite with mountain rescue and coastguard to trawl the area, leaving no stone unturned. The weather was mild when the missing man set out, but the unpredictable Scottish weather is due to turn, with a blizzard on the way.

Sixty miles away, in Thurso, a suspicious package smelling strongly of cannabis has been intercepted in the post, and it falls to Sgt Andy McKay and his team to investigate. With a warrant to search the address, the team get kitted up. In Inverness, roads police respond to complaints of antisocial driving at a nearby shopping centre, and a check on the system shows one of the culprits' vehicles already has an Asbo - but he is not ready to surrender.

Elsewhere, a car containing two dead deer is pulled over, and it falls to wildlife officer Dan Sutherland and his team to investigate whether the driver is an illegal poacher.

An experienced hiker has not returned from the top of a mountain on Skye, and a multi-agency response of police, mountain rescue and coastguard is enlisted to find him before nightfall and fog firmly set in.

An unusual call comes in to sergeant Steve Cooper in Glencoe, with reports of a campervan driver whose windscreen has shattered by what he believes to be a bullet. Could this be related to growing tensions between locals and tourists? Was a bullet really fired?

A drugs warrant in Dingwall exposes a concealed attic containing evidence of a cannabis-growing operation. Elsewhere, a driver is pulled over about his MOT and finds himself breathalysed. Despite only having one drink earlier at lunch, the reading is over the limit – a cautionary reminder that the drink limit is lower in Scotland than in the rest of UK.

Officers Katy and Stephen work a busy night shift in Inverness as they attend a scene with a persistent drunk man desperate for a lighter and an abusive spitter in the centre of town.

In Ardnamurchan, it falls to officer Joan MacIver to police her patch of 50 square miles. An area with a low crime rate, hers is a different type of policing, patrolling the beat to act as a visible deterrent from travelling criminals. Travelling hundreds of miles each day, we follow her as she ensures the often single-track roads are clear from live electrical cables and fallen boulders.