Defrauding an insurance company is not an unusual crime, but the way Stephen Venner planned to do it was not only unusual but macabre. But then Stephen Venner was a totally selfish and amoral man, and with the push of blackmail behind him, and the strength of his wife to support him, there was little he would stop at.

Ross MacLaren didn't know that, and allowed himself to be lured to Portugal where he, Stephen and the beautiful but repressed Emma play out the last tense act of at least one of their three lives.