In Moscow in 1983, an American journalist interviews Guy Bennett, who recalls his last year at public school, fifty years before, and how it contributed to him becoming a spy.

The story, told partly in flashback to 1968, concerns a clique of English public schoolboys who bully and humiliate an unpopular younger pupil (Cox) who is 'bad at games'. Ten years later Cox uses the naive and equal outsider Niles, who is only included in the clique because he is 'good at games', to find out more about the lead persecutor (Mount), in order to exact revenge

Traces the history of Anna who leaves school and becomes a prostitute. Three years later she becomes involved with a lecturer at college in Oxford.

Angie, Tony and their son Farnley go to stay with Uncle Edward. The routine of Defeats and his companion servant, Blades, becomes unsettled when Edward and Angie develop a close bond.