In France in 1917, a young British infantry soldier is sentenced to death by firing squad for desertion. Nearly fifty years later in the small English market town of Broxton, reports of a ghost dressed in the uniform of a WW1 soldier coincide with the disappearance of a schoolboy. The boy's sudden reappearance is quickly followed by a murder and a series of unnatural deaths. These remain unsolved until some years later when violent death once again visits Broxton. Inspector Harry Dangerfield uncovers a link between the execution, the missing boy and the murders. In the course of his investigations, he becomes convinced that Albert Flowers, the town's undertaker, knows more than he is prepared to say.