Laurence Deegan, QC, had just won his latest case. At fifty, already a distinguished and famous barrister, he seemed set to become a judge at an early age. That same evening, his triumph still fresh, he ran his bath, got into it and slit the veins in both wrists. Why had he done it? His younger son (a police officer in the Special Branch) takes it upon himself to find out. It is this investigation that provides the core and the detail of a most intriguing mystery.