Who would dream that a chance encounter on a city bus could lead an innocent young woman into a nightmare of mystery, intrigue, and even murder? But that’s exactly what happens when Cathy Carter, the artistic wife of Detective Inspector Neil Carter of Scotland Yard, boards a crowded London bus and takes a seat next to a sweet old woman named Mrs Willoughby. As the streets breeze by, the two women get to chatting and become fast friends. After Cathy breathlessly reveals the wonderful news of her first pregnancy, Mrs Willoughby, a dressmaker and clairvoyant, offers to make her a maternity wardrobe and read her future. In return, Cathy will paint the woman’s portrait. It is a friendly and seemingly innocuous arrangement until the day Cathy stops by the dressmaker’s studio for a fitting and find that someone has made a very permanent, brutal alteration on Mrs Willoughby herself! Suddenly the young mother-to-be finds herself under suspicion for murder, and her husband, whose temper has just suspended him from the force, begins his own private investigation, an unconventional bit of sleuthing that brings startling – and very deadly – results.