1985. As the new Collector London Port, Nick Storey inherits a Collection with low morale and weak performance in a declining port. Among the changes he makes, flexible use of staff to massively increase controls at random times, leads to the discovery at Tilbury of large quantities of cash in a mattress and cocaine in furniture destined for a new hotel to be built by an Italian company in the proposed development at Canary Wharf. The company claims no knowledge of the cocaine. Almost immediately the Assistant Collector at Tilbury is brutally murdered. A covert operation to follow a later shipment leads to the death of four smugglers, while trying to flee. As those responsible dive for cover, an old adversary, Kenneth King, emerges from the shadows seeking to persuade Nick to put him in the clear. But exactly who is responsible for shooting up Nick and Rosemary's home with machine guns? "Old Ghosts" is the eighteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise.