Hannah's baby son has been stolen...

Her husband Laurence left her when she became pregnant. Her best friend Sonia, who always claimed to find the idea of children repellent, has disappeared and when in desperation Hannah manages to break into Sonia's now-empty flat, she finds marks left by the feet of a cot on the brand-new carpet. Worse, when Hannah tries to track her firend she discovers that for years Sonia has been spinning her a tissue of lies - she was certainly not what she seemed.

Then another old friend, Jenny Green, informs Hannah she is leaving the area to train as a nurse. And once gone, she doesn't seem too interested in staying in touch. Poor Hannah feels increasingly bereft and isolated.

Hope flares momentarily when the police discover that Laurence is on the high seas, skippering a yacht back from the Azores - and there is a baby on board. On arrival in the UK he is hauled in for questioning, but the police are forced to let him go - whereupon he too promptly vanishes.

Meanwhile, beautiful, secretive Marty is renovating the Devon farm she inherited from her mother - but who is she hoping to entice there? And why does she refer to the adjoining barn as "The Slaughterhouse"? Twists and turns abound in this truly terrifying psychological novel from the author of the successful Rose Trevelyan and DCI Roper series.