It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing between Ivor Tesham, a thirty-three-year-old rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. On the eve of Hebe's twenty-eighth birthday, Tesham decides to give her a present to remember: something far more memorable than, say, the costly string of pearls he's already lavished upon her. Years later, this gift will ruin his career, his family, and his life.