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In October 2006 former drug-addict Anneli Alderton, just out of prison, returns to Ipswich to live with her mother and brother and train as a hair-dresser. In the red light district she sees old friend Gemma, who is on the game to support her own and her boyfriend John's drug habit and Anneli gives her money. Tania Nichol, another working girl, disappears after getting into a car with a punter. Annette Nicholls is on a methadone programme to prevent her lapsing back onto the heroin. She is an intelligent girl who writes poetry but she is failing to turn up for treatment and her mother Rosemary fears for her. Despite the danger Gemma goes looking for a trick as she and John are rattling. She is murdered and her body found in a stream.
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Tania's corpse is found but despite police warnings drug-addicted girls still take risks for money. Paula Clennell,whose children were taken into care because of her life-style, sees Brian Tobin,who runs the Iceni Drug Project with a view to kicking the habit. Annette tells Rosemary she has been accepted for a rehab hostel. Paula and edgy friend Rochelle agree to ply their trade just one last time but Rochelle is nervous and goes home whilst Paula goes off with a kerb crawler. Next day a girl's nude corpse is found, in cruciform pose, in woods outside Ipswich but the girl is Anneli, who had taken to the streets apparently to find out what happened to Gemma. Annette also goes off with a punter and, whilst Chief Superintendent Gull and his force face press criticism, both Annette and Paula are reported missing.
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Anneli's and Paula's bodies are found, nude and cruciform, yards from each other in woodlands. At a meeting where the police try to mollify irate householders enraged by the prostitutes' activities on their street, Brian Tobin explains that the only way forward is to treat the girls' addiction and remove the need to make money. He is hopeful as the project has been awarded a large grant. Rochelle volunteers for treatment 'for Paula's sake' though some clients are unhappy at the presence of sex workers. There is a red herring when Tom Stephens, a strange young man who claims that he 'looks out for' the girls is arrested but released but the breakthrough comes when the pathologist matches DNA on the last three bodies to that of Ipswich resident and regular punter Stephen Wright. He is subsequently arrested and sentenced to full life imprisonment. A coda tells us that many former prostitutes were helped by the Iceni Project and that the Ipswich red light district is no more. Written by
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