Caroline Watts has accepted a post as games mistress at the prestigious Abbey School in the west of England. She is delighted with the appointment: it''s an excellent private girls'' school. No matter that she was introduced to the post through a tenuous network of family contacts. And that the previous games mistress was found dead in bed from heart failure.

From the moment she arrives at the school, Caroline is beset by fear. But of what? How could a school, owned by two influential ladies and run by the formidable Mrs Nash, threaten harm to a new teacher, eager to start her first job?

Rumour has it that her predecessor died of fright ...