The defence barrister for Ian Turvey is killed in a car accident. Following just his instinct, and with only two weeks before the trial starts, Marcus Coaker KC accepts the seemingly impossible case.
The charge is the sadistic rape and murder of two young Indian women over a year ago. Their bodies are still missing. The only evidence is a table in the basement of a town house. There are ropes attached to it, blood at either side and semen on the floor at one end. DNA tests show the blood to be from the two missing girls and the semen that of Ian Turvey.
Marcus meets Turvey in prison. Far from a mere grass specialist, he’s a leading scientist, an expert in the genetic modification of sugar cane. He emphatically denies all charges and has no idea how his semen got onto the floor. He’s lost his wife, his family, his home and career; much better a lifetime in prison than pleading guilty to something he didn’t do. The truth must surely come out at some point.
Unknown even to Turvey, one of his experiments worked remarkably well. It means billions to anyone who holds the key to growing cloned sugar cane in cold climates – an inexhaustible source of biofuel. Marcus learns that Turvey has the close attention of one the leaders in global organised crime – beyond the law and a billionaire many times over.
Marcus engages the services of his private detective plus two of the country’s best, scientifically proven, psychic mediums. The investigation moves rapidly from a hospital 100 miles away to the state of Kerala in southern India.
Marcus believes he’s found a possible motive but still can't explain the presence of Turvey’s semen or the disappearance of the two women. Through a complex web of mixed identities, and battling family demands across two continents, Marcus faces an impossible race against time to bring a witness back to England without mishap. If successful, there’s a chance, albeit slim, that he may also save a family.
Throughout the case, Marcus his helped by the Stearn Institute for Afterlife Studies, which provides him with the services of some of the best psychic mediums and clairvoyants in the world of psychical research.