Thirty years ago, in a village in East Anglia where the land is swallowed up by mudflats and marshes and a hard wind blows in from the sea, a woman went missing.
It was midwinter, sleety and dark, but Christmas was coming. There were festive lights in the high street, decorated trees in the windows, smoke curling from the chimneys of the houses. And in a barn on the edge of the village, people were gathering for a party.
But one person never arrived, and life was changed forever in that ordinary little village. Her disappearance was the start of a chain of terrible events that for more than three decades blighted the lives of two families.
This is a story of dark secrets that were buried a lifetime ago, but which never lost their power, and of the grip that the past has upon the present.
It is the story of the people whose lives unravelled from that winter day: sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, partners and friends.
It is the story of a woman. She is a wife, a mother, a confidante. She is impulsive and warm-hearted and full of life. When people describe her, they use words like ‘radiant’, ‘vital’, ‘generous’, ‘optimistic’. She is a woman of appetites: she loves food, red wine, long hot baths. She loves dancing. Walking in all weathers…
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