Moving into an upmarket new home in Leeds, rising radio star Matt Harper is shocked to find the skeleton of a small child in the attic. His grisly discovery takes him back to the summer of 1969, when he lived with his aunt only a few streets away, reawakening dim, vaguely disturbing memories from his childhood. While Detective Charlie Peace heads up the nominal police investigation into the bones, Matt's unease leads him to revisit the past in an attempt to solve the mystery himself. Tracking down the other members of a gang of local children he'd briefly been part of then, he gradually unearths a shared secret that has laid buried ever since. Everyone remembers little Lily Fitch's meetings with her older 'friend', and the hippy couple's baby she wanted to rescue, but Matt can't help feeling there's something else they're holding back. Were the bones in the attic the result of a tragic accident, or has time concealed a more sinister truth?