Tessa and Lewis are unnerved by the arrival of baby brother Gordon. He has disrupted their perfect childhood and something must be done. Secretly they construct an effigy of the interloper and transport it to a phone box at the edge of town. They don't wish the baby dead, just gone, but when Gordon does disappear, it blights the lives of the whole Swinburne family. Coming to terms with the past doesn't get any easier with the years and the ties binding Tessa and Lewis grow tighter and tighter as their secret stalks them into middle age.