An atmospheric and powerful early manuscript from one of Britain's bestloved storytellers published for the first time by Severn House Academic Michael Bowater arrives in the small village of Ballacombe in Devon to recuperate from a near-breakdown precipitated by the suicide of one of his students, and problems in his marriage. Within days he finds himself caught up in the village's dark secrets: years before, a young girl disappeared, her body never found. A visiting journalist seems determined to resurrect the case, and reopen old wounds. Tormented by hallucinations and premonitions of violence, Bowater is reluctantly drawn into a disturbing web of intrigue and suspicion...