For an eleven-year-old boy, growing up in 1960s' England wasn't always easy especially if your father had left before you could even remember him and your mother was deranged.
Poor Jack had to cope with his mum every day. He didn't understand what was happening to her or why she was so stressed. On one tragic day, she thoughtlessly changed all that for him. He would never see her again.
Help for Jack appears quickly, in the form of two lovers from the railway police: the amorous DI Crosier and the ever-willing Sergeant Claire Cardin. They can't offer Jack a home, but their uneasy solution to Jack's problem is short-lived as further tragedies soon strike. This once seemingly straightforward case of suicide becomes littered with unforeseen difficulties with which the officers have little or no experience not good when death threatens to put an end to their affair.
In this harrowing and disturbing fiction, the railway detective attempts to deal with his family problems on top of those of his job, and his love life.