A group of boys playing near the seashore in Tokyo find a goat, kill it in a tug of war for ownership, bury it with ceremony, and, except for one boy, run off in heedless laughter ready for more games.
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual.
A day in the life of London and the Home Counties in 1962, seen from the perspective of the use of London Transport facilities from buses and tubes to long distance coach routes, accompanied by extracts from BBC radio.
Jean Wells believes she kills a man during a hit-and-run one evening. A man named Joe appears and, in exchange for keeping silent about the murder, blackmails Wells.