Things are not going well for Lovejoy. A dud cheque lands him in trouble, then Charlotte is attacked and robbed of a newly-acquired 18th-century portrait which police later recover at Lovejoy Antiques. Egged on by her new man, she has the luckless Lovejoy charged with aggravated burglary.

Tinker is in a very strange mood: he abandons Beth at a bus stop, ruins a deal for Lovejoy and leaves a pint of beer half drunk. Then he disappears without trace.