The murder of an unidentified five-year-old girl in a shabby London street leads Superintendent Richard Jury to suspect well-known financier Viktor Baumann - owner of an iniquitous house on the same street that serves as the hub of a pedophilia ring. When a second unidentified murder victim - this time a woman - is found in the gardens of Declan Scott's estate, Commander of the Devon and Cornwall Police, Brian Macalvie, thinks there is a connection. Three years prior, Declan's four-year-old stepdaughter, Flora, was abducted. Jury and Macalvie rake over the present and the past in a pub near Launceston called the Winds of Change. All signs point to the guilt of Viktor Baumann, Flora's biological father. But, when no one in this case is exactly who he seems, how can Jury be sure?