DC Cameron Stone spent three months in intensive care before he could even recall the high-speed pursuit and accident that had not only almost finished him, but also had killed a teenage mother and her child. After the message from Audrey that she had left him and taken their young son, Mark, with her, booze, anti-depressants, and therapy all failed to enable him to resume his old job. Now he lives in a room in the worst part of Glasgow, paying rent by running errands for a private detective agency. He's also paid by his former colleagues to do their dirty worklike threatening the newly released sex offender who has been hanging around the local high school. Stone is having a bad week. Audrey's talking of remarriage, knife-wielding kids try to mug him, and there's a message on his front door: Burn in Hell Baby Killer. The one bright spot is his growing friendship with Liz, the sunny Irish nurse on the next floor. But then his apartment is set on fireand now a stranger has turned up at the school and driven off with his son.