In 1988, the East Berlin homicide squad again and again encounters crimes that - according to the opinion of party leadership and state security - do not exist in socialism.

A teenager is found murdered, and the examining doctor recognizes her son's knife. The film works its way back to reveal how this situation came about; a rare treatment of the taboo subject of youth criminality in Socialist society.

After years of silence, a mother returns to her dying father, only to fixate on his new partner, using her as a distraction from confronting the person she fears most.