In January 1920, Rutledge is drawn to a Northamptonshire village after a constable is shot with an arrow in a wood believed to be haunted. The attack revives the unsolved disappearance of a young woman three years earlier and exposes the hostility beneath the village’s guarded manners. As anonymous objects from his own past begin to appear, Rutledge also suspects that someone has followed him from the war.
Folklore and psychological fear operate together in a community where supernatural explanations discourage inquiry. The missing woman’s fate is tied to wartime absence and the opportunities it created for concealment. Rutledge must separate local superstition from deliberate intimidation while refusing to let his own ghosts dictate the evidence.
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