Content Warning: Both the source text and this section of the guide contain descriptions of rape, abduction, domestic violence, anti-gay bias, ableist language and attitudes, sexism, and death by suicide.

Standing outside his estranged father’s funeral service, Matthew Venn receives a phone call from fellow Detective Inspector Ross May about a body found on the beach. The deceased has a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, and the body has multiple stab wounds. Matthew leaves the funeral to join Ross and another detective named Jen Rafferty at the crime scene. Matthew decides that he and Jen should interview the people who live in the nearby toll keeper’s cottage.

Maurice Braddick, an elderly widower, waits for the return of his 30-year-old daughter Lucy, who has Down syndrome. She is later than usual. When Lucy does arrive, she tells her father that she is late because the man who usually sits beside her on the bus and gives her candy didn’t arrive today, so she waited for him. Concerned for Lucy’s safety, Maurice questions her about this man, asking whether he has threatened her, but Lucy insists that he was just a friendly acquaintance.