There were four of the Thorpe family in the Anderson shelter the night of the raid on Coventry. Mum and Dad, Florrie and little May...Jack was missing. He was one of those who had not come back from Dunkirk. And May had to promise to keep a terrible secret, a promise which affected the lives of all the survivors, until May herself was the only one left. Seventy years later Daisy and Marcus, sixth formers in a Gloucestershire School, are given an A Level project on the bombing of Coventry in 1940. They go to talk to May, now living in sheltered accommodation nearby; a friendship is forged which bridges the gap between them. The two youngsters have their own problems, but as their lives unfold they become involved in the strange history of May's missing brother and of the promise, made all those years ago, which still has its repercussions today.