Henry Wilt is a teacher at the local technical college, wasting his days lecturing Liberal Studies to unreceptive day release students. Regularly turned down for promotion on the grounds that the college lacks cash and he lacks drive, Wilt spends his evenings walking his dog, Dasher, and fantasising about murdering his domineeringly-distant wife, Eva.

Meanwhile, the energetic Eva devotes herself almost obsessionally to ever-changing fads for self-improvement - scuba-diving and macrobiotic cookery one week, trampolining and martial arts the next - and to socialising with her upwardly-mobile school friend Sally, and her merchant banker husband, Hugh.

Unfortunately for Henry, his luck only seems to be on the slide. Walking with Dasher one evening, he happens upon a drugs bust being thoroughly mishandled by the equally incompetent and ambitious Inspector Russell Flint, and ends up rendering the CID man unconscious and on medical leave for almost a month.

Back at college, work is under way on a brand new building as the Principal prepares to schmooze an entourage of Japanese businessmen considering in sponsoring the institution - but work on both projects grinds swiftly to a halt when the builders catch a glimpse of limbs as they begin pouring concrete into the latest deep foundation pit.

For Flint the case is clear: a particularly grisly murder of a frustrating but innocent wife, by a crazed, psycho-maniac husband. And for Henry, well - just where has Eva gone?