When senior nurse, Jenny Butcher, is strangled in her flat, Detective Inspector Sanjay Patel is part of the team led by Chief Inspector Tracy Taylor that investigates her murder. Patel is a British-born Indian who dropped out of medical school to join the police force.

The team start to investigate the background leading up to the murder. After divorcing her husband, Jenny had moved to London to make a fresh start in a new job. Just before her murder, she had broken up with mathematics professor, Leo Roberts. Hospital manager, Keith Richards, was rejected by Jenny and was seen arguing with her. Marcus Buckland, an ENT surgeon, was formerly Jenny’s lover and wanted to rekindle their affair. His estranged wife, Dr. Lorraine Fletcher, had good reason to hate the victim. All the suspects appear to have alibis.

When one of Richards’s former girlfriends is murdered, officers go to arrest him but he has disappeared. Patel is suspended, following a racially motivated complaint by Inspector Colin Brewer, who has become convinced Richards is Guilty. Patel must now find a way to be reinstated and Richards, returning to London, is equally determined to clear his name.