It is winter, 1949. When John Davies confesses to killing his wife and baby daughter in their Notting Hill digs, it promises to be a depressingly straightforward case for DI Ted Stratton of West End Central. But then Davies recants and blames a fellow tenant, Norman Backhouse, for the crimes. Though some of the evidence appears to be ambiguous, Stratton sees no reason to believe him. A few months later discoveries are made at Davies’s old home. Has Stratton caused an innocent man to hang?