The book starts with a cremation, a pyre that is cremated a body in a garden.
It is the body of Jim Skelf, who is a funeral director and also a private investigator. He did not want a funeral. Watching the pyre are his wife, Dorothy, his daughter, Jenny, his granddaughter, Hannah, his granddaughter's girlfriend, Indy, and his assistant Archie. The man had a sudden heart attack and his wife found him in the bathroom.
Later the women are having a drink inside and Jenny has a call from the editor of the newspaper she writes a column for, and she is told that she is being made redundant. That is why, when her mother asks her to help with the business, Jenny agrees. We learn that Jenny is divorced as ten years ago Craig, her husband, left her for someone else, and now they have a daughter.
When Hannah goes back to her flat, she discovers that her flatmate, Mel, is not there. She and Indy discover Mel's phone, and they think it is strange that she left the phone behind. Then Mel's mother calls and tells Hannah that she and her husband were supposed to have lunch with her, but she has failed to turn up. Hannah tries to find her but she is nowhere to be seen. Hannah talks to her boyfriend, Xander, but he hasn't seen her either.
The next day Hannah talks to her mother and she tells her about Mel going missing, and she intends to investigate. Jenny has her doubts but she finally agrees.
Dorothy has found out that every month for ten years five hundred pounds were paid into an account. Dorothy is friends with a cop, Thomas, and he tells her that the account belongs to Rebecca Lawrence, who has a ten-year-old, and whose husband went missing ten years ago. Dorothy remembers that Rebecca's husband Simon worked for them. Jim told her that he had found a new job, and now she discovers that he lied to her. Dorothy goes to talk to Rebecca, who is not forthcoming, and only tells her that the money came from life insurance that Jim told her that Simon had taken. Dorothy wants to know why Jim lied to her about this.
Dorothy gets a call from Jacob, who was a client of Jim in the agency, and the old man wants to know why Jim didn't come to install some cameras. Dorothy goes to see him, and the old man says that his daughter-in-law hired a carer for her, Gina, and he is sure that the woman is stealing from him. So he wants evidence, and that is why he wants the cameras installed. Dorothy finds the camera in the office, and she and Hannah go back to instal them.
Jenny also gets another case. At one of the funerals they hold, the dead woman's sister talks to her. She suspects that her husband is cheating on her, so she wants to hire Jenny to have some evidence. Jenny follows the man, Liam Hook. Apparently, the man told his wife that he was working late, but he leaves his workplace to enter some building, and then he leaves and goes to a pub. It seems that there is something fishy about the man.
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