Northern Irish senior DCI Tom Brannick must inform his nosy junior partner DS Niamh McGovern about his past when they investigate the abduction, car thrown into the water, of IRA officer turned 'legitimate' businessman Pat Keenan, whose wife Clare is openly uncooperative. Their superior DCS Jackie Twomey steps in personally, fearing Tom's wife having been killed by IRA abductors renders his best man a loose gun. Tom suspects even Jackie may be involved in a cover-up as the case bears the signature of a never-identified killer-mole. A lead Jackie fails to sabotage finally enables them to find his previous victims buried on an island; which however falls under the jurisdiction of a special peace accord commission, which can block further investigation if it claims the case exclusively, which Jackie seems to want, allegedly to void violence resuming, which it does anyhow, complete with a Molotov cocktail at a police car.