Chloe Todd believes her baby daughter is sleeping peacefully in her pram in the back garden. She lifts away the blanket to check on her – and gasps in shock.

Chloe’s neighbour calls the police. But all is not as it seems . . .

Chloe Todd is in a loveless marriage. Her husband a villain who works for a man called Dean Rawlins. Rawlins has been missing for a year.

Det Superintendent Hedley Sharp arrested Rawlins just before he went missing. Something he’s had to live with.

Hedley is suspicious but his inspector is on Chloe’s side – a bone of contention throughout the investigation.

Hedley’s investigations will unearth a series of dark secrets . . . reaching back into his own troubled past.

Superintendent Hedley Sharpe is a long serving detective working for Manchester’s Major Crime Division. Despite being something of a rough diamond, he has an excellent clear-up rate. A widower, Hedley doesn’t take proper care of himself, existing on fast-food takeaways. His wife Emily was murdered some years previously. Her killer was never caught.