In a small coastal village somewhere in Britain, a stranger arrives, moving into a cottage left vacant by the death of a fisherman years earlier. Meanwhile, the village’s diminishing fishing fleet is confined to the coastal waters by a silent barricade of tankers in the distance, and what catch it manages to return appears mysteriously diseased. Told from the alternative points of view of the stranger, Timothy, and a fisherman, Ethan, we gradually learn about the events that have brought the characters to this point.