Abandoned... On the cold stone steps of an orphanage, just hours old and clutching the object which was to give her her name. Pearl Button had a hard start to life. Alone... Now 16, she's finally managed to escape. Finding work at a nearby cafe, Pearl is thrilled to start earning her own money, even if she must contend with sharp-tongued owner Dolly Boldy and her menacing son Kevin. At risk... Soon, though, Pearl's life is thrown into jeopardy when she becomes tangled up in the murky South London underworld, while at the orphanage where she spend her wretched childhood, a terrible secret is about to be unleashed...