When the peat-cutters came to report the dead man Gil Cunningham was up in the roof-space of his mothers house teaching his new young wife swordplay. They believe the corpse to be that of a local missing man. His wife & the widow who runs the local coalmine are sure the body belongs to someone else but then they find themselves accused of having killed him by witchcraft. & if the corpse is not the missing man who is it? Gil & Alys try to get to the heart of the matter. Together they uncover more murders than they bargain for & encounter the chilling secret at the heart of the mystery.