Who owned the car Harry Jukes stole?
Phillip Bellamy, a leading barrister, tells his wife, psychiatrist Anne Dyson, about his most recent case defending a young man, Harry Jukes, who has apparently shot a policeman on a country road and been found by police still holding the gun. Bellamy is convinced of his guilt but Anne is less sure. Much of her practice is with troubled young people and she feels there is more to the story than the police evidence.
Anne visits Harry in prison. He is depressed and distrustful but finally agrees to talk to her. Harry's story is that he took a Bentley Continental car to impress a girl but when she went off with another boy decided to take the car for a spin before dumping it. Swerving to avoid another car he burst a tyre but could not find any tools in the boot to change the wheel. He asked the driver of a car parked in the copse nearby for help but he was occupied with his girl and refused. Harry was spotted by a policeman on a bike who stopped to help. He flagged down a lorry to ask to borrow a jack. The lorry stopped but the passenger immediately produced a gun and shot the policeman. Harry managed to grab the gun off the killer as the lorry drove away. Shortly after, a police car arrived and Harry was arrested.
Anne believes Harry's story and tries to persuade Bellamy of Harry's innocence. She interviews Harry several times and begins to follow up some aspects of his story. She visits the gang that Harry hung out with in a café in Battersea and they agree to help her by trying to find the couple in the parked car. She also visits Taplow, the man whose car was stolen, several times and finds his account unconvincing. One of the boys from the cafe agrees to take a job at Taplow's frozen food depot to do some investigating there.
Taplow