The story kicks off on Hartcliffe council estate in Bristol during the early 1980s. It follows Steven Knight, a working-class boy who has his motorbike stolen the day he buys it. Teaming up with his scoundrel friends he desperately tries to track it down before it's gone for good.

Magpie lives in an isolated church community ruled over by her father, The Pastor. When a man is murdered, paranoia sets in and people start to whisper about a strange 'Beast' that lives in the forest.

On the North Yorkshire Moors, Abel, Head Gamekeeper, discovers the thing that is eating his grouse.

Holly Shaw wants to prove her writing talent in a reading of her romance novel. But she achieves the exact opposite with the cynical reporter Aaron Kingsley. On the way to her car, Holly is attacked. Her papers, her books, her coat and her shoes are found by the police on the riverbank.

Brendan Behan, a sixteen year-old IRA foot soldier, is going on a bombing mission from Ireland to Liverpool during the second world war. His mission is thwarted when he is apprehended, charged and imprisoned in Borstal, a reform institution for young offenders in East Anglia, England.