JIM KELLY

A man lies hidden in an abandoned boat. Stifling screams, he draws a knife across his arm, letting the blood flow free. Soon he'll be dead - and life can begin again.Three decades later Declan McIlroy, a 39-year-old loner, is found frozen to death in his flat as Arctic temperatures grip the cathedral city of Ely. His is not the only cold death that winter, but nevertheless reporter Philip Dryden has worrying doubts - for it seems Declan may not have been alone as he slowly froze to death...Dryden's suspicions harden when days later he finds the body of Declan's best friend Joe - frozen within a shell of ice on the doorstep of his secluded Fenland farmhouse.Soon Dryden is picking his way along a disturbing trail of cruelty and betrayal to a brilliantly executed crime. And to a chilling, half-remembered mystery from his own childhood...

Twenty-seven years later, investigative journalist Philip Dryden - visiting his wife, Laura, in hospital - is witness to Maggie's deathbed confession. But some secrets are best kept secret, and what started out for Dryden as a small and curious story about the only survivor of an almost-forgotten plane crash soon escalates into a full-blown murder investigation.

In the past: a man crawls desperately through a claustrophobic escape tunnel beneath a POW camp in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Above, a shadow passes across the moon, while ahead only death awaits him. In the present: Philip Dryden is reporting on an archaeological dig at the old POW camp, when a body is uncovered. But there is something odd: the man appears to have been shot in the head, and the position indicates that he was trying to get into the camp, not escape it. It's a puzzle which excites Dryden far more than the archaeologists or the police. That is, until a second, more recent, body is discovered...

1939, Cambridge: The opening weeks of the Second World War, and the first blackout - The Great Darkness - covers southern England, enveloping the city. Detective Inspector Eden Brooke, a wounded hero of the Great War, takes his nightly dip in the cool waters of the Cam. Daylight reveals a corpse on the riverside, the body torn apart by some unspeakable force. Brooke investigates, calling on the expertise and inspiration of a faithful group of fellow `nighthawks' across the city, all condemned, like the detective, to a life lived away from the light. Within hours The Great Darkness has claimed a second victim. War, it seems, has many victims, but what links these crimes of the night?

On the site of a former POW camp, deep in the Cambridgeshire Fens,a body is unearthed by archaeologists and local journalist Philip Dryden knows he has a mystery to solve. First, the man appears to have been shot in the head - and second, he was breaking into the camp not out. As Dryden digs deeper he unearths a corpse of more recent origin...

When two bodies are discovered, and forensic evidence links both victims to one awful event in 1966, local reporter Philip Dryden knows hes on to a great story. But as his investigations uncover some disturbing truths, they also point towards one terrifying foggy night in the Cambridgeshire Fens two years ago.

Summer, 1976. A plane crashes on a farm in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Out of the flames walks young Maggie Beck, clutching a baby in her arms... Twenty-seven years later, investigative journalist Philip Dryden is witness to Maggies deathbed confession, and what starts out as a small story turns into a murder investigation.