England, 1946. As a coastal village struggles to recover from the war, it is rocked by the return of a man long hoped dead: the disfigured Marwood Clay. In a place where everybody hides a guilty past and unspeakable past crimes lurk just beneath the surface, what terrible secrets has this exile brought back with him? Clay is consumed by a nightmarish past he cannot remember, and then a young boy vanishes on Christmas Day. Strange occurrences, hidden pasts, and deeply-buried truths.