 Inspector Lynley and Sergeant Havers are sent to a small village in East Anglia to investigate the murder of an interior designer who was shot inside the house but her body was deliberately moved outside. As the investigation proceeds they discover that the dead woman s sister was raped and committed suicide fifteen years earlier and the perpetrator mysteriously disappeared. These events are somehow connected to the current crime but the perpetrator s son refuses to co-operate with the investigation and attempts suicide to avoid doing so. As the pair close in on the murderer, Havers, becomes trapped in the local pub with several villages and the murderer. During the siege the villager s dark secret is revealed and the reason for the current murder becomes clear and Havers is forced to relive the horror of her recent shooting in order to prevail.