Five severed human ears are found in a plastic bag inside an abandoned van in Dudlham. A week later the ears remain a mystery to everyone, including the police. They can’t find the victims or the criminal or even figure out what the crime is. After a hashed routine investigation the case is passed down to Detective Inspector Gregg Downing, a family man who has spent ten years investigating only white collar crimes. He’s initially asked to fill in merely as a temporary charge due to an unusual set of circumstances at Scotland Yard. Despite owning a mansion in the suburbs less than five miles away, Gregg Downing knows nothing about Dudlham Farm. He is not expected to get results. But some people are beginning to make noise, so his mandate is to simply sit on this and provide some police presence at The Farm until something more interesting happens. Then, only days later, with Downing still on watch, ten-year-old Timmy Lewis disappears from The Farm. The boy’s guardian, Orelius Simm - a crime lord who has resourcefully harnessed the misfortunes of Dudlham to create a lucrative business empire - vows to spare nothing in his quest to find his boy. An unlikely partnership is forged between Orelius and the detective as the pair embark on a journey of harrowing discoveries that will take them beyond the mysterious ears, and beyond Timmy Lewis, through to the core of the fifty-year-old tragedy that is Dudlham Farm Estate itself.