We could pass anything, anything at all, at speeds which would astonish you . Sue, orphaned at birth, is born among petty thieves - fingersmiths - in London's Borough. From the moment she draws breath, her fate is linked to another orphan, growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.

The eighth month of pregnancy proves difficult for Susan. Her unhappy father has committed suicide, and Susan is haunted by the ghost of him as a boy. Emotionally immature herself, Susan has drifted her life, detached from those around her. Shocked out of her detachment by her father's death, Susan begins an affair with a sexually enticing artist.

On a Monday night in October in a seaside town in Suffolk, a woman is brutally murdered. She was not an obvious victim. She just wasn't, thinks her grieving, bewildered friend Tess, the type to have something happen to her. As the police go about their routine investigation, Tess' world of nappies, school runs and baked beans begin to unravel.