Journalist Andrew Sherwood is always on the lookout for thrilling stories. Perhaps for that reason, he notices the obviously frightened woman wearing her arm in a sling one morning. When he sees her again that day, it is on the train where she is being harassed by street youths.

Without any hesitation, he rushes to her aid, and then she tells her story: the day before, she, Louise Widdows, was hit by a car and, weighing even more heavily, Louise is terrified of her husband, the tyrannical Colin, who abuses her mentally and physically...