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It’s a Sunday evening when Cheshire Police get a call from Mark Moran of the Blue Apple Veterans Association, a charity in Warrington. The charity’s founder, former soldier Mark Smith, has not been seen for almost 24 hours, following an argument with his wife Denise. Upon going into the charity’s offices, Moran has spotted that Mark has left his desk unusually tidy, leaving behind both his phone and wallet. Moran reports that Mark suffers from PTSD and that he has been behaving increasingly erratically for weeks. Most ominously, Mark has posted on social media that he wants to end it all. Moran is fearing the worst.

A major search operation swings into action to try and work out where Mark might be and whether he has left the Warrington area. Sgt Paul Chadwick assesses the case and is immediately concerned that a trained soldier in such a volatile state could pose a high risk – especially as Mark has previously stated that he would like to provoke police to shoot him.

Meanwhile, Denise is left waiting at home in an agony of uncertainty. She has grown used to living with Mark’s PTSD – which stems back to a traumatic tour of duty in Northern Ireland – and which led to them setting up the charity together. For Denise, this only highlights the lack of effective provision for PTSD sufferers in the UK.

Mark has been missing before, but Denise worries that this time feels very different. She’s concerned that Mark may be taking deliberate steps to stop anyone from tracking him down and preventing him from carrying out his threat. But until she can get more news, her life is on hold. As time passes and there’s still no sign of Mark, the police investigation deepens. Sgt Helen Hayes scrutinises events in the build-up to Mark going missing and starts to wonder whether there may be more to his disappearance than meets the eye.