Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number thirteen. In St Blaise House where he lives, there are thirteen steps down to the landing below his rooms. His landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, who was born in the house, is blind to the decay around her. The Notting Hill neighbourhood has changed radically over the last fifty years, and 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious John Christie committed foul murders, has been torn down. Mix is obsessed with Christie. He has also developed a passion for a beautiful model who lives nearby - a woman who would not look at him twice. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes.