 At an archaeological dig of an ancient Roman ruin, Dr Janet Rix and her students uncover a recently buried body. The pot-mortem reveals that the body had been there for several months. The archaeological sites sits in the path of a bypass under construction and this creates a good deal of friction between the road crew and the excavators, who have a row in the local pub. When one of the road crewmen, known as Tarzan, is found with his head bashed in, the police assume that Rix or her colleagues are to blame. As the case progresses however, Dalziel and Pascoe find that they may be dealing with multiple murderers and that one of the crimes may be linked to a murder that occurred many years before. The only problem is that Andy worked hard to convict someone for that older crime and now faces the possibility that an innocent man was sent to jail.