The strap-hangers of Ealing Broadway station are familiar with unusual sights on the London Tube, including the woman with the sign who appears every day to watch the droves of busy commuters. Polite and neatly dressed, Mary O’Connor doesn’t beg for spare change or ask anything from anyone. What sets her apart is the placard she carries bearing a plaintive message: Come Home Jim. While others pass her by without a thought, Alice, a junior reporter at the Ealing Bugle, wants to know Mary’s story. Many years ago, when Mary met the charming and romantic James Whitnell, she knew that she'd found her other half. Then he disappeared without a trace. Mary is certain that Jim isn’t a cad, that he truly loved her and will return—especially because she's recently received grainy phone calls from him saying he misses her. But Mary hasn’t spent her life pining; she’s joined an organization to help others in crisis. Touched and more than a little suspicious, the curious Alice quietly begins her own investigation into Jim's vanishing act.