The Facebook message is from “Ann On,” who had previously posted a negative comment about Paul. In a brief exchange, Ann On confirms that Paul also conned and hurt a woman in her life. Before blocking Connie, Ann On gives her a single piece of advice: “Find the others” (149). This makes Connie realize Gwen was likely not Paul’s first victim. 

She recalls how she initially targeted Gwen by finding Bill’s funeral notice, which listed no other family. Connie posed as a cleaner, learned everything about Gwen’s life, and gradually planted the idea that she was Gwen’s long-lost daughter. She finally took a chance and called Gwen “Mum” in front of a man she would later come to know as Walter, and Gwen believed her. She solidified the lie with fabricated photos. Connie admits that in pretending to be her daughter, she genuinely came to love Gwen as the mother she never had. Now, energized by Ann On’s message, she feels a renewed sense of purpose.

Using the alias “Sharon” and a forged background check, Connie begins volunteering at Help for Homes, the charity that connected Paul with Gwen. A coworker mentions that Paul is a trusted volunteer, but he is often away doing charity work in Africa. Once alone, Connie searches the charity’s computer files and finds a hidden spreadsheet detailing Paul’s 20 assignments over five years, all with women who have dementia or similar conditions. She copies his listed home address and discovers that his most recent match is a woman named Fran Brown, assigned just a week after Gwen’s death. 

Connie prints the list and quits the same day. At home, she discovers that Paul’s address is fake. Her research into the women on the list reveals that three of them—Eliza Holmes, Lucy Holden, and Alice McKenzie—died in sudden accidents. She orders copies of their marriage certificates and finds that each had married a man named Paul, with a different surname, just before their deaths. Recognizing Paul’s signatures on the certificates, Connie concludes that Paul is a serial killer.

Connie travels to the home of Fran Brown, Paul’s latest match, an 86-year-old widow with vascular dementia. She stakes out the house from a bus shelter, reflecting on her desperate financial situation and her traumatic childhood, in which her mother Caz used her in various scams. After hours of waiting, she sees Paul arrive in his van and help Fran into the house. Watching them, Connie is convinced that Fran is Paul’s next victim, and the deadly pattern is about to repeat itself.

The perspective shifts to Gwen’s neighbor Walter. Connie returns from walking his dog, and they share tea. Walter privately worries that Connie’s insistence on Paul’s guilt is a way of coping with her grief and her guilt over being absent at the time of Gwen’s death. However, his opinion changes when Connie reveals that she believes Paul murdered three other women before Gwen. She explains how she uncovered the pattern of victims with dementia across different counties and tells him Paul has already lined up a new target. Stunned, Walter now believes her and urges her to go to the police. Connie refuses, insisting she needs more definitive proof before she acts. She outlines her risky plan to him, which he calls “madness.”

The perspective shifts to Jon Brown, Fran Brown’s son, in his office in Dubai. He answers a call from an unknown number. The caller introduces herself as Connie Wright and warns him that Fran’s Help for Homes handyman, Paul Michael, is dangerous and has a history of deception. She tells Jon that Paul is responsible for her mother’s death and urges him to request a different volunteer for Fran before it is too late. Before Jon can learn more, the line goes dead.

Connie sees on a real estate app that Paul has again lowered the price of Gwen’s house. She has been actively sabotaging the sale with fake appointments, pests, and invasive weeds. She is now hiding inside the house, having previously snuck in during a viewing to unlatch the back door. Searching through items Paul intended to throw away, she finds a jade-green porcelain cat that Gwen cherished and old love letters from Gwen’s husband, Bill. In the garden’s fire pit, she discovers two important items: a partially burnt photo of a young Gwen alongside a man and another woman—identified on the back as “Cousin George and daughter Meredith” (178)—and a fragment of a speeding ticket issued to Paul. The ticket reveals that his full name is Paul Michael Fernsby and lists an address in Oxfordshire. This new information gives Connie a solid lead.

At Paul’s Oxfordshire address, his neighbor, Harrison Douglas, notices Connie lurking outside. He approaches her, and she pretends to be a prospective buyer who saw the house online. Harrison tells her that Paul works on oil rigs, and the house previously belonged to his mother Sue, who had Alzheimer’s disease. He explains that Paul had moved in to care for her, but she died after falling down the stairs and breaking her neck two years prior, on February 1.

In the middle of the night, Connie breaks into Paul’s Oxfordshire house. The home is undergoing renovations similar to those at Gwen’s. In a spare room filled with boxes, she uncovers a trove of evidence. She finds love letters Paul wrote to his victims—many word-for-word identical but addressed to different names—along with replies, their marriage certificates, fake IDs under his various aliases, and receipts for deed-poll name changes. A shoebox contains three labelled transparent tubs of false teeth, one per victim, and five old mobile phones with photos of him with each woman, plus a single wedding ring he apparently reused. She also finds boxes of Omixinol, an psychoactive drug not routinely tested for in toxicology screens. Last, she discovers nursing home receipts for a patient named Sue Fernsby, with the first invoice dated the day after she supposedly died. A childhood photo album confirms that Sue is Paul’s mother, and she is still alive.

Back at her bungalow, Connie spreads out the evidence she stole from Paul’s house. She considers sending it to Krisha but decides against it, fearing that a lengthy investigation would prevent her from inheriting Gwen’s estate. She resolves to pursue a riskier plan. She reflects on the prison sentence she served for credit card fraud, which kept her away from Gwen in her final weeks. The memory triggers the voice of her mother Caz in her head, reminding her of her cynical, self-serving worldview.

Connie visits Sunny Meadows, the dreary nursing home where Paul’s mother Sue resides. At the reception desk, she runs into Sammi, a former coworker from a care home where Connie used to steal from patients. To gain Sammi’s trust, Connie tells her a modified version of the truth: that Gwen had no family and promised to leave Connie her house in return for care, and that Paul murdered Gwen and three others to steal their inheritances. She explains that she needs to get a photo with Sue to use as a threat against Paul. Sympathetic, Sammi gives her five minutes in Sue’s room. Before Connie leaves, Sammi mentions that Paul pays extra for that specific room because of its unique view.

In Sue’s room, Connie finds Paul’s mother skeletal and unresponsive. She notices a teddy bear on a shelf and recognizes it as a nanny cam. Looking out the window, she sees that the room directly overlooks the cemetery where Paul buried Gwen. A quick search on her phone reveals that Paul’s other victims—Eliza, Lucy, and Alice—are buried in adjacent plots to Gwen’s. He has arranged it so he can watch over all his “trophies.” Connie then deliberately performs for the nanny cam: She takes a pillow and lowers it over Sue’s face, staging the act as a threat to Paul rather than a genuine attempt on Sue’s life. Her phone rings; it’s a withheld number. She removes the pillow and answers, telling Paul they need to talk.

Connie meets Paul at a pub. He acknowledges her stunt with the nanny cam, and she confirms she would not have hurt Sue, and her plan altered the moment she recognized the teddy bear as a camera. She demands he sign over Gwen’s estate, threatening to go to the police and naming his other victims. Paul is initially dismissive, citing her criminal record, but his composure falters when Connie shows him photos of the evidence she stole from his house, particularly the Omixinol pills. She explains the drug can be detected in exhumed bodies. 

Cornered, Paul suggests they work together as partners, an offer Connie rejects. He finally concedes, agreeing to give her what she wants. Before he leaves, Connie asks why his mother is still alive. Paul reveals that he is waiting for a rare phenomenon where dementia patients have a moment of lucidity before death, so he can tell Sue everything he’s done and make her die knowing it is all her fault.

Three days after her meeting with Paul, Connie has heard nothing from him and grows anxious. While walking home from her new cleaning job at a local pub, she is met by Krisha, who is waiting outside her bungalow. Connie immediately feels a sense of dread.

Krisha confronts Connie, revealing that she knows her real name is Rachel and that Paul has filed a complaint against her for harassment and breaking and entering, providing security footage as proof. Paul has framed Connie as a scorned admirer who made repeated attempts to seduce him and tried to blackmail him out of jealousy. 

When Connie protests that she has evidence of his murders, Krisha says Paul already mentioned that personal items had disappeared from his home. Connie leads Krisha to Walter’s garden to retrieve the evidence, which she hid in his dovecote, but finds it gone. In its place is an MP3 player containing the ABBA song “The Winner Takes It All.” She takes out her phone to show photos of the documents to Krisha, but she realizes that her phone’s photos have also been erased. Lacking any proof and facing her own history of fraud, Connie’s accusations are dismissed. Krisha warns her to leave Paul alone or face another prison sentence.

Connie is devastated, realizing that Paul has outplayed her. He anticipated her every move, used his security cameras to frame her, and stole back the evidence. She wonders why Paul withheld the nanny cam footage of her holding a pillow over Sue’s face, knowing it would have put her in a cell. 

Her phone then receives a video from an unknown number. She watches in horror as it shows grainy, night-vision footage of her sleeping in her own bed the previous night. A montage of other clips follows, showing her in private moments—showering, eating, crying—some filmed months ago. She discovers tiny holes drilled in the ceilings of every room and realizes that Paul has been accessing her loft via the adjoining, empty bungalow. Terrified and violated, Connie understands that Paul believes he is untouchable, and she fears he is right.