In the provincial St. Malo, in Brittany, the nurse Vivianne Sterne and her crippled and sensitive husband René Sterne, who is a drawing teacher and former painter, live in an isolated shore-side house. When his 10-year-old student Eloise is found raped and strangled in the woods nearby his house, the Parisian new chief of police Frédérique Lesage investigates the case and René becomes her prime suspect. Consequently his reputation and his life are destroyed and he loses his students. Meanwhile Vivianne is seduced by the arrogant and shallow writer and journalist Germain-Roland Desmot, who is a celebrity in Paris and is spending a vacation is his hometown, and is closer to him. Will Frédérique Lesage find the killer?