Richard attends the summer party for The Witness, a conservative periodical. Ben’s election campaign is progressing well. Days earlier, Richard met his estranged wife, Hannah, and told her about the police files. She urged him to expose the Fitzmaurices.

At the party, Richard encounters Lord Cunningham voicing extreme right-wing views. Uncharacteristically, Richard expresses disagreement. Ben and Serena arrive looking composed and glamorous. On his way out, Richard tells a photographer he will have much to say the next morning.

In the makeup chair before his live television appearance, Richard meets Maisie, who unwittingly references his pornography scandal. When he admits he was the politician in question, she respects him for owning up to the mistake. Richard realizes that honesty might be more powerful than all his calculated media management.

During the interview, Richard announces that new information has led him to conclude Ben is unfit for leadership and that he has handed files containing worrying allegations to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He then announces he is putting his name forward for the Conservative Party leadership. The host points out it is too late, but Richard argues the circumstances are extraordinary enough to warrant bending the rules.

After the interview, Richard receives a proud text from Hannah and sees coverage of his appearance alongside stories about Cosima’s activism. Ben calls, furious, accusing Richard of betrayal. Richard confronts Ben about covering up Fliss’s rape allegation and Vicky Dillane’s death. When Ben threatens to ruin him, Richard ends the call. Hours later, a news alert announces that Ben and Jarvis have been arrested on suspicion of bribing a police officer, and that Jarvis has been further detained for a historic allegation of sexual assault. The chair of the 1922 Committee suggests Richard’s candidacy is possible. By the time Richard reaches home, his initial certainty about doing the right thing has begun to fade.

Cosima stays with Martin in Cambridge for three weeks. Watching Richard Take’s live television appearance with Martin—who is gleeful as Richard destroys Ben’s career—Cosima realizes with horror that while she thought she wanted her father brought down, she actually still loves him. She ignores calls and messages from her parents out of fear and shame, knowing she helped cause this through her alliance with Martin. When journalists arrive at the cottage after identifying her connection to Oblivion Oil, Martin keeps the curtains closed. Cosima leaves for Bali the next morning, having booked a volunteer program clearing plastic from beaches to feel closer to Fliss.

Months later in Bali, a Welsh volunteer recognizes Cosima as the politician’s daughter whose father is in jail. She has a panic attack and faints on the sand. A German volunteer named Rudy sits with her and suggests she call her parents.

That evening, Cosima reads Ben’s latest email. He explains that as a student, he drunkenly killed his girlfriend, Vicky, while driving and paid Martin to take the blame. When Martin later exposed this, Ben bribed the police to make it go away. Ben also admits that when Fliss accused Jarvis of rape, he convinced himself she was lying because of her history and his dependence on Jarvis’s campaign funding. He acknowledges that his ambition led him to overlook the harm he caused and asks for forgiveness.

Cosima calls her parents on video. Serena answers emotionally, and Ben appears looking older and more fragile. He tells her he is awaiting trial and expects either a few months in prison or community service. He also mentions that he and Serena made a donation to an environmental charity in her name. Cosima apologizes too, though she will never tell them what she did. She makes a silent pact: “[T]o keep her own crimes secret, she has to forgive her father his” (304). They laugh together when Ben mentions Serena’s spiritual coach. For now, Cosima focuses only on this call and the possibility of reconciliation.

In the aftermath of Ben’s arrest, Martin feels empty and aimless. He had structured his entire life around his resentment of Ben, and now that revenge is complete, he does not know what to do with himself. He reflects that revenge is like a “dying snake”—even beheaded, it keeps thrashing. Realizing that his plan brought him closer to Ben than he will ever be again, he misses him.

Coming home one day, Martin finds Maurice, his cat, dead on the sofa. He buries Maurice in the garden beneath the acacia tree, and kneeling by the grave, recites the Lord’s Prayer for the first time since school, asking a God he does not believe in to look after him.

With the cottage quiet, Martin watches television news all day for the sound of other voices. A report announces that the sexual assault charges against Jarvis have been dropped due to insufficient evidence. Martin is devastated but unsurprised. He wonders whether Jarvis knows Martin was behind the exposure and whether he will come after him.

Four days later, Serena calls to invite Martin to dinner at Tipworth. Martin is flooded with relief: The Fitzmaurices do not suspect him, and he will see Ben again. He cuts hydrangeas and leaves them on Maurice’s grave.

Martin attends a formal dinner party at Tipworth, where he is seated next to Alexander, an attractive young private banker with an American accent who flirts with him throughout the meal. Serena thanks Martin warmly for coming and emphasizes how much they need their friends.

That afternoon, Ben had taken Martin for a walk in the grounds. Martin noticed Ben was wearing an ankle tag, and Ben tried to joke about it. Ben had changed dramatically—his vigor and certainty replaced by confusion and a need for reassurance. During the walk, he obsessively returned to the same grievances, unable to believe what had happened. He expected to spend several months in prison, and Martin promised to visit and look after Serena and the children. Ben then apologized for everything in their past, explaining that Jarvis had poisoned his view of Martin for years and used knowledge of the various cover-ups to manipulate him. He forced Ben to hush up what Jarvis did to Fliss by threatening to expose the Vicky Dillane affair. Convinced that it was Jarvis who betrayed him, Ben thanked Martin for trying to warn him about Jarvis decades ago.

At dinner, Ben gives a speech about true friendship and loyalty, raising a toast to the friends around the table. Red wine splashes across the white tablecloth as they touch their glasses together.

Martin is at a country hotel in Hampshire with Alexander, now his partner. They live together in a London townhouse. After pursuing Martin following their meeting at Tipworth, Alexander has become a loving, kind, and unobtrusive presence in his life. Martin has quit his university position and is writing a book on the queer gaze in art while serving as cultural advisor to the Prime Minister, Richard Take.

Martin visits Ben regularly in Belmarsh, where Ben received an eight-month sentence and will serve four months. Prison has improved him—he is humbler, works in the prison library teaching political history, and has said he will not return to politics, wanting instead to work with addiction charities. During Martin’s last visit, Ben asked him to be Cosima’s godparent. Deeply moved, Martin reflected that Ben was still his “dearest friend.”

Cosima is living at Tipworth after returning from Bali and is preparing to take her A-levels before studying marine biology at university. She recently stayed with Martin and Alexander in London.

At the hotel pool, Alexander is reading about Prime Minister Take’s plan to introduce VAT on public school fees while Martin reads his favorite Patricia Highsmith novel. Alexander notices someone emerging from the sauna and realizes it is Andrew Jarvis. Jarvis sees Martin, smiles, and begins walking toward them. Martin is suddenly seized by anxiety.