St Pauls, Bristol. 1980. Joseph Tremaine Ellington, now 57 years old, has long abandoned his former career as an enquiry agent for the safety of teaching. But his old life draws him back. 
One of the very few lights from Ellington's dark and violent past has flickered out. His fiance Ruth Castle is dead – leaving him again heartbroken and alone to bring up his fifteen year old niece, Chloe. Ellington's days are long and lonely, his nights tormented by old ghosts. 
When the wife of a locally respected Baptist minister vanishes into a seamy, dead-end world of users and abusers, leaving behind both her own family and a critically fragile premature infant daughter, Ellington is asked if he can help find the woman. 
Joseph is determined to keep his distance from the dangers of the Bristol night. But his inescapable obligation to an old friend, a man he deeply respects, keeps bringing him back like a moth to a flame.