It is 1999. Alastair is a doctor in his eighties, living in a cottage by a loch in Scotland. He wakes up in hospital having fallen and hit his head, inducing almost total amnesia. A young student, Clémence, the great-niece of a French friend of his, is looking after him. In his cottage, Clémence finds a manuscript. The first line shocks her: It was a warm, still night and the cry of a tawny owl swirled through the birch trees by the loch, when I killed the only woman I have ever loved. She read the short prologue: it describes a murder by someone who is clearly the old doctor. The victim is Clémence’s French grandmother, Sophie. Clémence decides to read the book to the old doctor as it describes how he and his friends met Sophie in Paris in 1935. As they read on, the relationship between the student and the old man turns from horror and shame to trust and compassion. Which is fortunate, because there are people closing in on the cottage by the loch who are willing to kill to make sure that the old man’s secrets stay forgotten.