CBS have been employed to guard the pheasants in a wood owned by Lord Melverley of Whitley Hall, in preparation for the annual Shoot on the day of the Feast of Mortimer. Lord Melverley is worried about hunt saboteurs. When Ken is on his way to join Rocky and Laura in the wood, he discovers an old Morris Minor Traveller van parked nearby, with a shotgun in the back. Could it belong to the saboteurs. The following day, his bike breaks down outside the church. The vicar, Rev Peter Bradshaw, is a keen bike enthusiast and mechanic, and gets the bike going again. He happens to mention that he also maintains the van, a Morris Traveller, belonging to Ralph Cotterell, the former gamekeeper. Lord Melverley sacked Cotterell recently after twenty-five years and Cotterell is now reduced to working as part-time groundsman for a nearby school. Ken talks to Cotterell who is indeed very bitter about the way that he was sacked, in connection with an incident when sheep belonging to a neighbour, Chris Sh
