During World War II, American soldiers stationed in Somerset made friends with the locals, especially with the local girls. After one apple harvest, a human skull is found in a cider barrell. Nine-year-old Theo Singer was a principal witness for the prosecution. In 1964 Dr. Theo Singer is approached by a girl called Alice, the daughter of the US serviceman hanged for the murder in 1945. He reluctantly investigates the mysterious details that led to a twenty-year-old murder conviction, and the horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.