Ellie Quicke, fiftyish and recently widowed, is still trying to come to terms with her newly single state. She's coping, just, but could do without everyone else making demands on her; Diana, her selfish daughter, who expects Ellie to drop everything to babysit, the builders working on her new conservatory and her elderly and irritable Aunt Drusilla. To cap it all, ten-year-old Tod, who lives next door, has gone missing.