Clifford Benyon, cuckolded landlord of the Belle Vue Hotel, is tortured by his wife's flagrant affair with one of his best customers. Pushed beyond the limits of endurance, he hires a canal boatman to kill his wife's lover and wants nothing more than for his life to be normal again. But once the deed is done it gathers its own deadly momentum, and he finds himself caught up in a situation spiralling out of control...