Mrs Phoebe Maybury, a widow in her late thirties, lives in Streech Grange with her two companions Diana and Anne.

One day her servant Fred finds a rotting corpse in their ice house, a storage room inside a hillock that hasn't been used for years.

DCI George Walsh thinks it may be the corpse of Phoebe's husband David, who went missing ten years ago.

DS Andy McLoughlin, whose wife has just left him for another police officer, gets romantically involved with Anne and believes the three women are innocent.

Chapel died from the cold and part of his flesh was eaten by rats after Wally left open the door of the ice house.

It is also revealed, that (ten years ago) DCI Walsh tried to blackmail Phoebe into becoming his mistress in exchange for stopping the investigation.

When the three women are left in McLoughlin's company they talk openly about how Phoebe killed her husband almost ten years ago.

Meanwhile, vandals from the village had terrorized the three women and the children, so when David sneaked into the house, Phoebe smashed his skull thinking he was one of them.