Eighty-five steps and then darkness . . . She's gone. Vanished. Not from my memory, but within these walls where water sings in metal pipes and soot-stained bricks crumble at the edges. How can a child disappear in a building with only five floors and eleven flats? Everyone knows that Mickey Carlyle is dead. A man is in prison for her murder. Everyone, that is, except Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz who cannot stop searching and hoping. He is found one night, clinging to a buoy in the River Thames, with a bullet in his leg and a photograph of Mickey in his pocket. Nearby is a boat that looks like a floating abattoir. Ruiz's service pistol is missing and so is his memory. Under investigation by his own colleagues and accused of faking amnesia, his only hope of unravelling the puzzle is to retrace his steps and relive that night with the help of psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin. Facts, not memories, solve cases. Facts, not memories, will tell him what happened to Mickey Carlyle.