Holidays for Molly Prendergast usually meant accompanying her husband,
Giles, to the annual conference for physics lecturers. When the
conference is held in Huddersfield and a school friend invites Molly to
accompany her on a two-week holiday to a Greek island, the choice is
obvious. While in Greece, Molly starts a novel, Under the Fig Tree,
which she finishes on her return to England. While in Huddersfield,
Giles is targeted by what Molly's friends termed a 'cougar', Mariella
McIlroy from Dundee. The next annual physics conference is to be held in
Dundee, so Giles willingly agrees with Molly's suggestion that they
should both go to Greece instead. Molly returns from their Greek idyll
pregnant with twins, while Giles is asked to be a keynote speaker at the
Annual Physics Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Leaving the twins
in the care of their grandmother and big brother, Jaimie, Molly and
Giles make the most of their free trip to see all the sights of New
Mexico. They discover that Mariella has been asked to join Giles'
physics department on the South Coast. On their return to England, Molly
and Giles take the twins, Jaimie and Grandmother on an outing to
Bournemouth, where they meet the McIlroy family locating to the South
Coast. Mariella attempts to push Molly off the pier into the sea, with
tragic consequences. But for whom?
