Alvin Green has `accidentally' committed a violent crime and is on the run. The police are after him and so is his victim, bent on revenge. He decides to flee on a train travelling to Scotland. But the 9.35 to from King's Cross to Edinburgh is no ordinary train; as Alvin soon discovers, it is populated by glamorous young women from films by Alfred Hitchcock who want to draw him into their own plots. In case he needs legal advice there is also a barrister in attendance.

Can this be a real train? Of course not. Alvin and his train are the creation of aspiring novelist Andrew Brownrigg, who is serving a prison sentence for a similar offence to that of his fictional hero. Fortunately for Andrew, Gainsborough Open Prison is about to start a Creative Writing Class: and he soon becomes tutor Jenny Patterson's favourite student.