When teenager Laura Vernon goes missing during a hot summer in the Peak District, local policd mount a full-scale search. But it's retired miner Harry Dickinson who finally discovers Laura's body, and he seems determined to obstruct the investigation. Ben Cooper, a young D.C. has known the villagers all his life, but his instinctive feelings about the case are called into question by the arrival of Diane Fry, a ruthlessly ambitious detective from another division. As the investigation twists and turns, Ben and Diane discover that to understand the present, they must also understand the past; and in a world where no one is entirely innocent, no one can avoid pain.