The peacefulness of the small quiet town is disturbed in the middle of the night when a shot rings out but when the police come to investigate, at first, there are no signs of violence. Then, a trace of blood is found and it is human. There is no body, no cartridge case from the bullet, no-one is brought to hospital with a bullet wound and no-one is reported missing. Detective Sergeant Rob Cording is put in charge of the case and he sends his men door to door to gather information from witnesses. When, a week later, a body is fished out of the sea, Cording begins to fit the clues together and the trail leads from the country where the crime was committed (which is never disclosed), across an ocean to Columbia, Venezuela and Holland