Teenager Thomas Royale meets three girls in an orchard on the grounds of a remote private girls’ school. The next morning his cold, naked body is discovered with head wounds and a broken neck. Detective Adam Durwood is reluctant to take the case having promised to quit the force to repair his fractured relationship with his 12-year-old daughter, Lily.

Adam must interview the teenage girls who were rehearsing for the school play, Macbeth, with Thomas before he died but meets resistance from the school principal. The delivery driver who found the corpse is equally reluctant to meet Adam as he struggles to cope with what he saw. Adam’s daughter Lily’s strange behaviour attracts the attention of the school bullies.

The school’s superiors continue to frustrate Adam’s attempts to interview the three girls, but he tracks down Eva Tatiana, the girls’ enigmatic and protective teacher, and grills her for some insight into the impregnable dynamics of the private girls’ school. Lily, meanwhile, ventures into the apple orchard where she has a haunting encounter.