Late one night, Chief Inspector Alan Banks is summoned to the home of Chief Constable Riddle. Riddle's sixteen-year-old daughter, Emily, has run away, and for once the chief constable is asking Banks to employ his unorthodox methods to find her. Banks tracks her down in London but discovers that she doesn't want to be found. She is living with gangster Barry Clough and insists that she is happy in her new life. Later, when she shows up at Banks's hotel asking for help, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the young girl's life. Banks finds himself caught in a complex web of drugs and murder, police and politics, and fathers and daughters.