Winner of the CWA John Creasey Award for Best First Novel of the Year – and the start of Minette Walter's long list of bestsellers

'It was evident, if there were no other entrance to the ice house, that the body had at some point traversed this thorny barrier . . . The big question was, how long ago? How long had that nightmare been there?'

The people of Streech village had never trusted the three women living up at the Grange – not since Phoebe Maybury's husband suddenly, inexplicably, vanished.

Ten years later a corpse is discovered in the grounds and Phoebe's nightmare begins. For once they have identified the body the police are determined to charge her with murder . . .