On her first ‘official’ investigator case, Dee Gascoigne is off to the village of Hartwell Priory, where locals are up in arms over the proposal to dig up the deceased ancestors buried in the local cemetery in order to make way for three hundred new houses.

As if things aren’t tense enough, a group of hippie-like ghost hunters arrive and hold a seance. A message from beyond the grave seems to indicate that a grave has been forgotten.

Or was it just not a legal burial?

*

She came towards him through the field of buttercups and tall swaying grasses. Her light cotton dress fluttered about her in the breeze. Her hair, backcombed for fullness, was gathered into two beribboned ponytails that trailed over her shoulders. Her nose was littered with new freckles. Sun-kisses, they used to say when he was a child. How he would have liked to kiss her now.

‘You look about five,’ he grumbled.

She stood on tip-toe to kiss his rough cheek. ‘Hello Inspector Grumpy. Are you here about the murder?’

***