When archaeologist Louise Cantor's son Henrik is found dead in his flat, she refuses to believe it was suicide. Clues that only a mother could detect lead her to believe something more sinister took place.

In her grief she begins to investigate Henrik's death and when Louise finds a photograph of an unknown girlfriend in Mozambique she decides to travel there. She sees fear in every face, even unexpectedly in the patients at the AIDS clinic set up by an American businessman. Slowly Louise realises she has immersed herself in something far bigger than her son's death...