A quiet Suffolk village, 1944 At 14 Gerald Haxton is a lonely boy who regards his still-born twin, Jack, as his only friend His mother, a famous children's writer, guards Jack's memory fiercely, claiming him as the model for her fictional boy detective, and Gerald, disturbed and unpopular, has no hope of competing Playing in the woods, he discovers the body of his elder sister She has been beaten to death and her boyfriend, a young GI, is hanged for the crime