When workmen converting former girls' boarding school, Chadleigh Hall, into a luxury hotel find a skeleton in a sealed room, DI Wesley Peterson and his boss, Gerry Heffernan are called in to investigate. Within minutes they have a second suspicious death on their hands—a team of marine archaeologists working on a nearby shipwreck have dragged a woman's body from the sea, and it becomes clear that her death was no accident. The dead woman's husband may be linked with a brutal robbery of computer equipment, but Wesley soon discovers that the victim had secrets of her own. As he investigates Chadleigh Hall's past and the woman's violent death, matters are further complicated for Wesley when a man wanted for a murder appears on the scene, a man who may know more about Wesley's cases than he admits.