It is 1953 and just outside the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, local vicar Sidney Chambers has lost track of time, having spent a lovely morning with his friend, and with whom he is secretly in love with, Amanda Kendall. He races to the church, Sidney arrives just in time to minister the funeral of a local solicitor. Sidney does his best to comfort a young German widow Hildegard Staunton but he is soon called away from his duties when Pamela Morton asks to draw Sidney into confidence. She reveals that she was having an affair with the late solicitor. She believes did not commit suicide but was in fact murdered.