The Whitstable Pearl restaurant's been busy all summer while Pearl's detective agency has brought few interesting cases - until a prospective client calls. Christina Scott confides that seven years ago she had the perfect life - until one morning she woke to find herself alone. Her husband had vanished, taking nothing but his car - which was later found abandoned at Oare Marshes. Now, with the legal presumption of Steven's death about to be made, Christina shows a photograph to Pearl. It's not of him, but of her young son, Martin, who has grown up without his father but Christina is adamant he now deserves to know the truth. Will Pearl help her solve the riddle of Steven's disappearance? DCI Mike McGuire warns Pearl she's on a fool's errand but the case resonates with Pearl as she begins to uncover secrets and lies that take her on a dangerous journey back into her own past, as well as Christina's.