Schoolteacher Elliot Smith is standing on the platform of an outdoor underground station late one night. He is not pleased having just wasted an evening watching a long faded band in a local pub.

A partially dressed Detective Sergeant Dagmar Johnson wakes up lying next to an unknown man in an unknown house. In an attempt to discover how she ended up there, events that follow, lead her to an encounter with an organised crime gang heavily into prostitution, money laundering, loan sharking and the supply of heroin. Dagmar Johnson is serving penance in a specialised detective unit because she has had a history with alcohol.