In the 1950's, Stan Cummings, Bill Hardy and Jimmy Buxton grew up together in the Lancashire town of Ramscliff. Their world was centred around the old cotton mills, and especially the River Irk which flows through a deep gorge in the town. Now it is 1994. Stan and Bill are both teachers at Ramscliff High School, but Jimmy is now a Detective Sergeant in the local police force. When Stan finds a girl's body in the river, Jimmy is put in charge of the case. Two more murders follow, and Stan, who spends a lot of time down by the river, is seen as the chief suspect: initially by a hostile Chief Inspector Roger Twentyman; and, later on, by a reluctant Jimmy Buxton. Is burnt-out history teacher Stan really the murderer? Or, as his drinking buddy Bill Hardy likes to suggest, is this another serial killer in the mould of the notorious 'Ramscliff Strangler' of the 1950's? How involved are Stan's Sixth Form students: Mark Sanderson, Felicity Barlow, Michelle Porter and Eric Watson? And what does American exchange teacher Todd Shevlin make of it all? For nearly two months, fear walks the terraced streets of the Old Town, and along the banks of the Irk. Then, in a tragic climax at the flooded footbridge over the river, all is revealed.