Melbourne, 1886. Two gentlemen climb into a hansom cab late one murky night. One man climbs out, the other travels on to St Kilda. On arrival, the driver finds the second man dead; murdered. The ‘high-society’ killing sends shockwaves through the young city, still flush from its gold-rush boom.

Attempting suicide, sultry but down-on-her-luck swindler Liz is rescued by lonely tow truck driver Aiden. But instead of rushing her to the hospital, Liz's savior abducts her to his remote farmhouse, convinced that she is the wife who abandoned him years earlier.