"I'm Nicky. Your little sister." With these words from a stranger, Hilda's quiet existence in a marshland cottage with her rescue cats is turned upside down. She resolves to find out the truth about her parents' marriage, her father's secret life and her mother's untimely death. Meanwhile her brother Dunstan is scandalized by Nicky's claim to be the "love child" of his father, a respected doctor who recently died. In his efforts to stave off the threat Dunstan resorts to desperate measures, with tragic results. Meanwhile Hilda discovers some disturbing truths about her family background and uncovers a long-ago crime. This gentle mystery novel set in the Kent and Sussex countryside in the early 2000s, with flashbacks to 1940s Oxford and the 1960s London nightclub scene, ends with a shocking twist.