This is an elegantly written book, with a clever, intricate plot and well-drawn characters; so why did I give a sigh of relief when I came to the end? Because reading it made me feel utterly depressed.
Four thirtyish Londoners, three of them on very good incomes, attend the Wapping Festival. The fourth member of the Group (which is what they call themselves) is Cassie, the main storyteller. She is in a dead-end job and flat-shares in a tatty apartment overlooking the bus station. However, she is the only one of the four who has any kind of a conscience. The four friends have known each another since university, and were originally two couples – Cassie and Dex, Bo and the beautiful Anna.
Several years ago, Dex decided he was gay and married a rich older man called Gav, who is now dying of cancer. Anna married a wealthy money man and shortly afterwards gave birth to a son. But they all agreed that their group friendship came first, despite their lives progressing onward.
After a festival concert, they get split up and individually take a shortcut through a churchyard and all witness a violent rape. It is very dark and they can't see the two people involved clearly, only that the girl is small, dark and wearing a red dress. Shortly afterwards they all meet up again and Cassie suggests they should immediately report what they saw to the police. She is shouted down by the other three, who point out that they will end up getting involved in some unpleasant experiences with the police. Reluctantly, Cassie allows herself to be persuaded. A few days later they read on the internet that a girl's body has been recovered from the river. There is an identikit portrait, which Dex recognises as the pizza delivery girl who delivered pizzas to his and Gav's luxury apartment early on the evening of the concert. She is the rape victim. Cassie feels more strongly than ever that they should report what they saw, but of course they will be asked why they didn't report it sooner.
A month or two later, in early spring, the Group rent a slightly spooky holiday cottage for a long weekend overlooking Chesil Beach in Dorset. But the weekend becomes increasingly uneasy for Cassie, despite a new relationship she strikes up with Will, the landlord of the local pub. Bo's degree was in early pre-history, so fossil-hunts are on the agenda, and Will, who has a side-line as a tattooist, gives Cassie a very small ammonite tattoo on her inner wrist.
The action swings between the present, in the cottage, and the events of the past, at the Wapping Festival, as what really happened that night is gradually revealed, leading to a violent, and appalling, conclusion.
