Inspector Davison is haunted by the suspicion that too many Duncaster girls are dying. A senior officer has closed enquiries into seemingly unrelated deaths. John Richards, a bereaved father, is constantly blocked, until he meets Harry Whitehouse, a former police officer who has also lost his daughter. Nothing disturbs the complacency of the quiet Midland town of Duncaster in the Fifties, but there is a supreme evil growing in the shadows. A young teacher, Daniel Leven, begins his third year of teaching in a Duncaster school staffed by older women and a domineering Headmaster, Mr. Deacon. From Daniel's new class, Mr. Deacon chooses the Head Boy and Girl. Daniel begins to be concerned when the girl, Sheila Morgan, begins returning from the Headmaster's errands in distress. Slowly, seemingly unrelated threads draw together the innocent and the wicked in this tale of murder and depravity.