A classic Rendellian loner Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place where the notorious Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby
- a woman who would not look at him twice. Mixs landlady Gwendolen Chawcer is equally reclusive
- living her life through her library of books. Both landlady & lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mixs life a long pent-up violence explodes.