The coffin arrived by train. It was labelled urgent and addressed to the 'Deerham Hills Hospital: Pathology Department', although nobody at the hospital seemed to be expecting it. So it waited.

But the contents of this coffin were eventually to provide some busy and perplexing weeks for the local police, and especially for Sergeant Charmian Daniels, whose special province was coping with missing girls. And there had already been quite a spate of them that summer . . .