When the strangled body of teenager Diane Thorburn is found buried in the salt store, Chief Inspector Woodend is drafted in from London to investigate. An outspoken Northerner, he does his policing the old-fashioned way, and he is convinced that Margie Poole, Diane's best friend, knows more about Diane's last movements than she is prepared to tell. Then Woodend's inquiry turns up the death of another young girl a generation before. The similarities in the two cases begin to look more sinister than mere coincidence. Could there be a serial killer on the loose . . .?