February 1952 and the country is in mourning following the death of King George V1. On a train leaving London's Paddington Station, Ned Stanley is bound for Cornwall to convalesce after an energy sapping bout of glandular fever. He has accommodation booked at the Ringing Bells Inn located on the Lizard Peninsula in the small fishing village of Trengillion on Cornwall's beautiful south coast. Ned assumes his stay at the Ringing Bells Inn will be soothingly tranquil and a complete contrast to London where he teaches history at a secondary modern school. But the old Cornish village, Ned is soon to discover, has a guilty secret and he will rapidly find himself committed to resolve an intriguing mystery regarding the sinister disappearance of Jane Hunt, a local girl who worked at the Inn but has not been seen since she vanished the previous summer.