Rosie Spence was her own invention. She'd had to be - in her family it was either that or sink into the family business, deal a bit of stuff on the weekend, nice trip to Margate come the summer. A partner in a top City legal firm now: all designer labels and attitude: the best in the business. On home turf - down The Three Blind Mice - she's peerless, a goddess; the classiest girl on the block. So what's she playing at with that shaggy, shuffling creature - Alex - the do-gooder from the drug rehab centre, a man with an overly developed sense of morality and no dress sense whatsoever Because they're always together and it's not like Rosie to look so devoted.

But then there's the fire at the Red Lion. And suddenly what might have been the beginnings of an unlikely love affair accelerate into something altogether different, something more out of control. And even though Rosie didn't intend to wake up in the middle of some arty film noir - lovely heroine pursued through the rain washed streets of London - that's precisely what seems to be happening . . .