Trying to overcome an illness and a broken relationship, Tony Middleton rents a cottage in a wild and desolate part of mid-Cornwall. Here, he encounters a rough and violent old man who is convinced Tony is someone else - someone with whom the old man has a score to settle! Tony suffers from food poisoning and, in his state of fever, endures wild hallucinations bringing him images of a past that seems all to real to him. Attacked by the old man, Tony makes his escape and discovers the strange truth behind his tortured fantasies.