When William Gove, a dying millionaire and patriarch of a vast estate in Essex, asks Daniel Connell to execute his will, Daniel has no idea what he's getting himself into. Rather than leave his fortune to his three children, Gove has chosen ten names at random from the phone book. When he dies, Daniel sets out to track down the recipients. But a chance remark by one of them that perhaps this is God's way of compensating her for the disappearance of her daughter gives him pause. When another recipient also mentions a missing person, Daniel begins to suspect that there may be something darker at work.