The body of Boris Blaschke, who was area manager for Ludwigshafen at the Billy discount chain until his death, is found on a rubbish dump. When Lena Odenthal and Mario Kopper start investigating in the branches there, they get an insight into an industry in which extreme pressure is exerted on the employees. Increasing work rates and unpaid overtime are the order of the day, and a regional manager like Blaschke does not even shy away from the observation of the employees by a detective agency. The evening before his death, he tracked down Gisela Dullenkopf, Beate Schütz and other women from one of his branches at an after-hours meeting where they planned to set up a works council.
In this atmosphere of distrust, control and suppressed anger, Lena and Kopper find a number of employees with potential motives for murder. Blaschke's successor Günter Novak, who obviously thought little of his former colleague, is trying to prevent employees from cooperating with the inspectors. Nevertheless, the two inspectors find out that a few months earlier Gisela Dullenkopf's son Jan, who also worked for Billy, had killed himself. Now his mother is the focus of the investigations...