A young man, of Romani descent, returns to his hometown of Gloucester. He is met by local garage mechanic, Dunleavy. They embrace, smiling. But what past does the young man carry with him? What awaits him back amongst people he doesn't really understand and who don't understand him? And what lurks in the forest, watching, silent, old as the trees?
Maud's best friend Elizabeth has disappeared, but as she tries to solve the mystery, dementia threatens to erase all the clues, giving the search a poignant urgency.
For sixty years, Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace, a meeting like no other in British public life, it is private.