The Fish Catcher

It is London, a blitzed city. Up till now Mary Fissleborough has resisted being sent to the country, evacuated, but when the Mulryne's house opposite is bombed, slaughtering little Orla, Mary relents. Two days later in the company of her sister Daisy, and five hundred strangers she departs Paddington station bound for Devon. They pitch up in a small country town along with an abandoned boy, Billy Grimes, and wait in the old cattle yard to be collected by their new Mum and Dad. Some of the kids are taken to the guesthouses, some to the Vicarage, or the Smithy, but Billy and the Fissleborough sisters are driven into the hills to Wolfdale Hall. Mary has always fancied herself as something of a private detective, and it is not long before she is looking into the affairs at Wolfdale through her questioning eyes. Why is the front bedroom always locked? Who is the smooth stranger Oliver Tresco, who glides about the Hall? And where is the daughter, Cicely, who no one has seen? The more she discovers, the darker the picture appears to be. Is it a figment of Mary's over-active imagination, or could they realy be in danger at Wolfdale?