Grey has come to Tokyo in pursuit of an obsession. She is searching for a lost piece of film supposedly taken during the infamous Nanking Massacre in 1937. Some say the film never existed. The only man who can help is a survivor of the massacre. Now working at the university in Tokyo, immersed in his books and wary of strangers, he will at first have nothing to do with her. Desperate and alone in this alien city, Grey accepts a job as a hostess in an exclusive club catering for Japanese businessmen and gangsters. There she comes to the attention of one particular gangster. Ancient, wheelchair-bound and surrounded by a terrifying entourage, he is rumoured to rely on a strange elixir for his continued health ? an elixir others want, at any price? And it is there Grey unearths the horror that links the present with the past?