It was Stamp's first starring role in over a decade, and Roth won an Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

Four Spanish youths kidnap him and deliver him to British hit man Braddock and his sidekick Myron, hired by the kingpin that Parker helped put away.

Parker quickly adopts a carefree demeanour, later explaining that he's had ten years to accept death as a simple part of life.

He is Harry, a middle-aged Australian with a young apparently non-English speaking Spanish girlfriend Maggie, who comes home as they are talking.

Harry gives them the keys to the owner's white Mercedes which is brought to the underground garage where the group leave their previous car.

As they are about to leave, Parker makes a comment that causes Braddock to doubt that Harry will keep quiet and he goes back up to the flat and kills him.

The group head toward the French border intending to reach Paris, where the kingpin against whom Parker testified is apparently awaiting their arrival.

Braddock himself has a confrontation with her when they are alone in which she reveals she understands English and also bites his hand, drawing blood, from which he appears to derive some form of masochistic pleasure.

The next day, Braddock stops the car at an isolated hillside ten miles from the border and announces that he has scrapped the plans to go to Paris.