Dr. Marion Röder, the youngest surgeon at the Omega Hospital, is harassed by her drunken ex-boyfriend, orthopaedic surgeon Dr Jürgen Mattes, at a birthday party for a colleague of theirs. That same night Dr Röder is found dead in her own home by a friend of hers, Laura Finke. Her throat had been cut. Dr Mattes can't produce an alibi and is arrested. The director of the hospital, Theresa Hirsch, and her husband Alexander, a successful banker, are both staggered by the death of the young doctor; they were good friends of hers. Lessing takes the job of defending Mattes. But it is a difficult task: Mattes claims to remember nothing of the evening in question and doesn't offer any helpful information. What exactly is Mattes trying to hide?
