Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from an isolated Derbyshire hamlet. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation filled with dead ends and closed faces, an outcome that reverberated down the years. Decades later he finally tells his story to Catherine Heathcote, but just when her book is to be published, Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information which he refuses to divulge, information that threatens the foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A taut psychological suspense thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion.