A tragic car crash in a game park in South Africa leaves a two-year old child an orphan, or so everybody believes. The boy's father is killed outright and his mother mysteriously disappears. About sixteen years later a South African boy, Sam, wins a scholarship to study at university in Britain. During a fund-raising bike ride in Taransay, a wild, deserted island off the north west coast of Scotland, Sam's past abruptly materialises...