It wasn't the rain that upset during Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It wasn't the dilapidated barn in which she took shelter. No, what upset her was the human skeleton she discovered there . . .

So begins the second investigation for strait-laced Carole and her laid-back neighbour Jude. This time their enquires take them away from Fethering to the small hamlet of Weldisham. There gossips quickly identify the corpse as Tamsin Lutteridge, a young woman who disappeared from the village months before. Detective Sergeant Baylis will confirm nothing. So why is Tamsin's mother, a friend of Jude's, so certain her daughter is still alive? And why is the unstable Brian Helling so keen to announce that there is a serial killer on the loose . . . ? As Jude sets out to find Tamsin - either dead or alive - Carole digs deeper into Weldisham's history and the bitter relationships simmering beneath the village's gentle facade.