When Meredith Mitchell drops a hitchhiker at Brussels-based lawyer Andrew Penhallow's home, she is left feeling uneasy, for the girl is highly secretive. The next morning Andrew is found murdered. Meredith and her boyfriend, Supeintendent Alan Markby, uncover shocking revelations as they investigate.

When Meredith Mitchell gives a lone hitchhiker a lift into Bamford one evening, she is left feeling uneasy, for the girl is highly secretive. What business can she have at Tudor Lodge, home of Brussels-based lawyer Andrew Penhallow, where she asks to be dropped? Unusually, Penhallow is at home that night...and the next morning he is found murdered in the garden. His death results in some spectacular revelations about a double life involving his mysterious visitor, Kate Drago, but she is not the only suspect unearthed by Meredith's boyfriend, Superintendent Alan Markby, as he investigates the ghosts of Penhallow's past as well as the secrets of the present; aided and abetted by Meredith but rather hindered by colleague Sergeant Prescott, who has inconveniently fallen in love with the chief suspect...