Whitstable Pearl

13EME RUE A local photographer asks Pearl to investigate after she claims to have seen Gemma, the missing daughter of her friend Val. Val believes Gemma’s husband Luke had something to do with her disappearance. Pearl becomes suspicious when she finds handwritten labels in Luke’s bin, as Val says it’s Gemma’s writing. Pearl enlists Mike’s help to discover if Gemma has returned.

Whitstable Pearl is hosting the annual Psychic Fair, but tragedy strikes when seven-year-old Saffia goes missing while in the care of her nanny, Flora. Pearl is approached by a local psychic, Cassie, who says she can ‘feel’ the child’s presence and persuades a skeptical Pearl and Mike that she can find her.

It’s Pearl and Tom’s anniversary, and Pearl gets wind that he’s planning to propose on their romantic getaway. The infamous food critic, Paddy Sheedy, is visiting the Whitstable Pearl to give a review, and as Pearl and Tom settle into their wi-fi free lakeside retreat, Paddy finishes his meal and drops down dead—poisoned! Will Pearl stay away?

Pearl rushes to London when her phone tracker shows Charlie’s in London, not Canada, and hasn’t told her. Nikki celebrates her birthday in the restaurant, and an old Whitstable resident turns up, freshly out of prison, having served 30 years for murder. Mike finds out that Nikki’s mum Janet had worked the case, and Mike finds himself questioning the past.

It’s Halloween, and Pearl drags a grumpy Mike on a Ghost Walk run by the local septuagenarian, Jacob Cranage, who later claims he has seen a body being buried on the beach opposite his house. Mike and Nikki investigate but find nothing, and feeling sorry for Jacob, Pearl tries to get to the bottom of what it was he saw.

Mike and Nikki find out that a taxi driver found shot in his car had previously avoided a rape charge with the help of a slick female lawyer. Across town, an ex-investment banker turned whistle-blower narrowly misses an assassin’s bullet and goes to Pearl to investigate who wants him dead. How are the two cases connected?