Phantom children with sepia-toned skin play in the back yard of an aging apartment building and its adjoining antiques shop which is currently closed. Both the landlord Mr Williamson and a tenant named Ruth have mysteriously disappeared. A man without a face in cahoots with the children, appears on the stairs. An evil presence has emerged from a photograph; something which has appeared in every photograph ever taken anywhere in the world, and is powerful enough to turn Sapphire and Steel into literal two-dimensional photographs of themselves.