Cal Hooper, an American ex-cop has moved from Chicago to the West Irish countryside, where he is renovating a stone house that he found on the Internet. Cal lives alone following his separation from his ex-wife, Donna. Although he admires the landscape and is amused by the locals treating him like a curiosity, he has the sense that he is being watched. Cal, who has been careful to conceal his previous profession from everyone, assumes that his spy is a curious child.

However, one morning, he notices footprints in the dirt beside his living-room window. He senses danger when the “back of his neck flares,” as it did during his cop days (11). He realizes that a trespasser is on his property and moves to apprehend him. The spy turns out to be a child who bites Carl’s hand to force him to loosen his grip. Unable to catch the fleeing child, Carl returns to nurse his hand. His instincts tell him that the child will return because he was not here for fun, but “for a purpose” (14).