Hannah's memory of finding April's body opens the novel, with only the image of an open door remembered clearly.

Hannah receives a phone call from her mother informing her that John Neville, April's convicted killer, has died in prison.

Hannah arrives at Oxford's Pelham College and meets her glamorous, wealthy suitemate April for the first time.

Hannah meets Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily during a Great Hall dinner on her first night at Pelham.

After late-night strip poker, Hannah discovers Will and April entering April's bedroom together and feels like an outsider.

Reporter Geraint Williams tracks Hannah down at her Edinburgh bookshop and challenges the evidence used to convict Neville.

Geraint reveals to Hannah that April was pregnant at the time of her murder, a fact never made public.

Neville tackles Hannah to the ground and grinds against her after she climbs Pelham's wall to avoid him.

Hannah returns to the suite after the Medea afterparty, sees the open door, and her memory goes blank.

Hannah nearly faints when she first meets November Rain, April's younger sister, who looks strikingly like April.

Hannah and November tour her old Pelham suite with Dr. Myers and Hannah notices no signs of guilt from him.

Hugh calls Hannah to warn her that he heard someone in Will's room on the night of April's murder.

Hugh drugs Hannah's tea at his Edinburgh apartment and she loses consciousness in his guest bed.

Hugh drives Hannah to a seaside cliff, confesses to killing April, and Will arrives in time to tackle Hugh.

Will's phone recording of Hugh's confession publicly clears Neville's name, and Hannah deletes her decade-long email folder labeled 'Requests.'

Hannah Jones arrives at Oxford's Pelham College, meets her glamorous suitemate April, and quickly falls into a close-knit friend group that includes Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily. Her first year is shadowed by an unsettling porter named Neville, who physically attacks her before April is found murdered in their shared suite. A decade later in Edinburgh, Hannah is pregnant and married to Will when she learns that Neville has died in prison still proclaiming his innocence. Reporter Geraint Williams forces Hannah to confront the holes in the case, including the revelation that April was pregnant at the time of her death. Hannah's investigation leads her back to Oxford and ultimately into a trap set by Hugh, April's true killer, who drives her to a remote cliff intending to silence her. Will arrives in time and the confrontation ends with Hugh dead, Neville's name cleared, and Hannah finally able to close the door on a decade of guilt.

The headline events that define Hannah's story

April opens a bottle of champagne given by her father and pours a glass for Hannah on their first night together.

Hannah meets her literary advisor Dr. Myers for the first time and finds Neville waiting in the corridor afterward.

April fakes her own death by pretending to fall from the suite window, then laughs as Hannah panics below.

Hannah returns to the suite to discover April is having sex with a secret partner who is not Will.

Dr. Myers introduces Hannah at his exclusive party by highlighting her working-class background, leaving her embarrassed and singled out.

April applies expensive lipstick on Hannah after winter break and pulls her into an unusually long, emotional embrace.

April pranks Ryan into flushing his drugs down the toilet; he grabs and shoves April in rage before Will intervenes.

Hannah's midwife discovers dangerously elevated blood pressure at a routine prenatal checkup and schedules an urgent follow-up appointment.

Hannah and April argue at an exclusive club over more drinks, and Hannah leaves April there alone.

April aggressively kisses Will in full stage makeup in front of the entire friend group after her Medea opening night.

Ryan confesses to Hannah that he had a secret sexual affair with April for the entire academic year.

Hannah reports Neville's physical assault to Dr. Myers, who politely doubts her account and refuses to take immediate action.

Hannah overhears April and Will arguing about a missed performance and offers to throw April a farewell party.

After Hannah faints while meeting with November, her obstetrician prescribes blood pressure medication and restricts her activity.

Hannah, Emily, and Ryan ride together in a funeral car to attend Hugh's cremation service.

From the first night Hannah and April share champagne in their suite, secondary events reveal the hidden tensions and secrets that make April's murder so difficult to solve. April's elaborate pranks, her secret affairs, and the uncomfortable dynamics within the friend group all point to a web of grievances and motives. Neville's disturbing behavior escalates from creepy interactions at the Porter's Lodge to a physical assault that Hannah struggles to report, while Dr. Myers proves an unhelpful and dismissive authority figure. As the investigation deepens in the present-day timeline, Hannah reconnects with Ryan and learns his shocking secret, while her own body begins to rebel against the stress of uncovering the truth. The trail of secondary clues ultimately leads Hannah and November back to Oxford and toward a resolution that is as much about healing friendships as it is about solving a crime.

The moments beneath the surface that built the mystery

Will's casually relieved reaction to hearing that Neville died in prison shocks Hannah with its coldness.

Hannah reflects that her single eyewitness testimony was the entire foundation of the prosecution's case against Neville.

Emily calls Hannah to ask if reporter Geraint Williams has been in touch, revealing he doubts Neville's guilt.

At a weekly date dinner, Will angrily slams the table when Hannah mentions Geraint's doubts about the case.

Hannah startles so violently in a restaurant that she knocks over her chair, believing she heard April's voice.

Will orders Hannah to stop cooperating with Geraint; Hannah secretly emails Geraint to arrange a private meeting anyway.

After Neville invades their suite uninvited, Hannah collapses into Will's arms and the two share a brief, guilty kiss.

Hannah visits Ryan for the first time since his stroke and is struck by how severely it has aged him.

Hannah calls Will to share that she felt the baby kick; he erupts in fury over her investigation of Ryan.

Hugh admits to Hannah that he was never fully certain Neville killed April and recalls April's cruelest prank on Emily.

November confirms April was pregnant at death, and Hannah deduces Dr. Myers may have been the father and faints.

During their Oxford meeting, Emily argues that Hannah's romantic feelings for Will gave her a clear motive to kill April.

Hannah realizes April's killer likely escaped through the window via the same rusty drainpipe April used for pranks.

Will overhears Hannah asking Ryan on the phone whether Will truly had a solid alibi on the night of April's murder.

Hannah wakes to find Hugh has driven her deep into rural Scotland and realizes he must have killed April.

From the moment Will reacts to Neville's death with unsettling relief, a series of pivotal revelations steadily erode Hannah's certainty about who really killed April. Each new piece of information — Geraint's doubts, April's pregnancy, the weakness of the original evidence, a possible escape route through a window — shifts suspicion from one suspect to the next, keeping both Hannah and the reader off-balance. Key emotional turning points, such as Hannah's guilty kiss with Will, her reunion with a stroke-weakened Ryan, and her confrontation with Emily at Oxford, deepen the personal stakes of the investigation. The web of false leads tightens around Will before Hugh plants the most damning misdirection of all, steering Hannah toward her own husband. Only when Hannah wakes trapped in Hugh's car does the decade-long deception finally collapse, exposing the killer she never once suspected.