Two very different young women have been murdered within the same week. One was a nightclub singer, the other a nurse, but both were strangled in their own homes in strangely efficient, remarkably similar attacks. The press is quick to assume there's a psychopath on the loose, but Detective Chief Superintendent Wycliffe suspects the truth may be somewhat more complex. When another attack is aborted for no apparent reason, Wycliffe is certain that this is no random spate of murders. But with his superiors and the media uninterested in his theories, Wycliffe knows he will have to work alone to find the killer. As he searches for a link between the victims, his investigations take him back in time - to a school trip, an isolated hostel, and a cruel joke on a lonely student.