When a young girl, Emilia Troy, goes missing it isn't long before rumours about what has happened have spread through the Peabody estate. Everybody thinks that the social worker assigned to the case, Joshua Salem, is the prime suspect. And stories about Emilia's troubled father, Roger Troy are catching the imagination of the gossips. A once great scientist driven to insanity by the loss of his first wife - it is no wonder that speculation about his role in the disappearance of his daughter is rife. The case is handed over to Gregory Summers who must solve Emilia's disappearance by trawling through his suspects' murky lives - the over protective social worker, the lonely nurse, the jilted foster parents. As his investigations progress, he is led on a manhunt for Salem through the BSE infected countryside of Newbury accompanied by a ghost from his own past, Chief Inspector Megan Davies. Personal relations and professionalism overlap as Summers soon learns that behind every respectable facade, dark secrets lurk...