Melinda Jefferson arrives in Brixton, in the late eighties, seeking accommodation. On seeing the horrendous birthmark that covers almost half of her face, most landladies decide they have no vacancies. When she knocks on the door of Mrs. Bertha Brown, a Jamaican landlady who suffered similar prejudice when she arrived in London some forty years earlier, she is treated kindly and offered a room in the attic. What Bertha doesn't know is that Melinda harbours a dangerous secret.