Tim Simpson's latest plan for the art fund is to purchase paintings by father and son William and Ben Nicholson; he is also exploring the possibility of an investment in a film/photographic archive. But his activities are put on hold when he is implicated in the murder of a Pimlico-based film researcher. All the police have to go on is a notebook full of cryptic scribbles (including the name 'Simpson, T') and a collection of photographs. Tim has no knowledge of the dead woman, but is shocked to realise that the photos left in her flat all relate to the Nicholsons. Then the colleague assisting with the Nicholson acquisition is brutally attacked and Tim realises that has ventured deep in the dangerous world of modern art fakes.