It's late 1944. Allied victory is on its way, but it's bloody well dragging its feet. Hitler's rockets are slamming down on London with vicious regularity and it's the coldest winter in living memory. In a large house next to Hampstead Heath, Vera Sedge is just about scraping by, with a household of lodgers to feed, and her young ward Noel (almost 15) to clothe and educate. When she witnesses a road accident and finds herself in court, the effects are both unexpectedly marvellous, and potentially deadly, because Vee is not actually the person she's pretending to be, and neither is Noel. The end of the war won't just mean peace, but discovery.