There is a serial killer working the streets in London raping and strangling women with a neck tie, the last of whom is discovered floating in the Thames. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a disillusioned former Royal Air Force officer working as a bartender, has just been fired for drinking on the job and is seeking career-direction with his bar-maid girlfriend Babs Milligan (Anna Massey). As Blaney hits the streets in search of another job he wanders to Covent Garden Market to chat with his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a local fruit dealer, to figure out what he will do. The police are clueless to the culprit in the ongoing crime and working on a solution casually speaking with Rusk whose sarcasm offsets the serious tone of the authorities. After having too many glasses of brandy, Blaney goes to see his ex-wife Brenda Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) whose matrimonial agency is moderately successful at putting people together. Brenda takes Blaney to dinner and surreptitiously puts money in his pockets which he discovers as he is sleeping the night at the local Salvation Army. When Brenda is raped and strangled by the necktie murderer the police suspect Blaney and a manhunt led by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) is initiated for him. Inspector Oxford seems to be experiencing his own form of gastronomical torture in his marriage with a wife experimenting in gourmet cooking by using her husband as a test subject. As the net tightens and the police eventually capture Blaney, suspicions arise in Oxford's mind about the possible true culprit.
Where does Blaney sleep?
Salvation Army