As a woman in the early 1980s, Clarissa Phipps is unable to pursue her vocation to the priesthood. Instead, she joins the BBC’s religious affairs department, where she is sent to interview celebrated artist, Seward Wemlock, about the panels he is painting for an ancient Cheshire church. 30 years on, Clarissa, now rector of that same church, chances upon Brian, the chief bell-ringer and husband of her closest friend, fondling 15-year-old David. Dismissing David’s claim that they are in love, Clarissa is obliged to act. Will she choose friendship or conscience, sympathy or her official duty of care? The fallout from that choice forces her to reflect on the controversy over Wemlock’s panels and her concerns about his relationship with the teenagers who modelled for Adam and Eve. Had she acted on the whispers that reached her at the time, how many lives would have turned out differently?