When Daniella Coulstoun, a claims assistant for a major insurance company, takes a call from a man who declares he will be dead within the hour, she dismisses him as a crank and doesn't report the call.

But when a dead body is found in the caller's flat her manager intervenes and threatens to call in the police.

Daniella already suspects there is something fishy going on within senior management and has been discussing it with Rebecca Connolly, a journalist in Inverness. When Daniella contacts Rebecca about the case, Rebecca thinks she recognises the dead man's name. She contacts former cop Bill Sawyers, who reveals the man is a small-time crook.

With Daniella wading through a slimy morass of office and sexual politics and Rebecca surfing the belly of the Inverness underworld, together they uncover a web of lies, greed, fraud – and murder.