This Cleddau/The One That Got Away ending explained feature contains spoilers... It's been a wild ride filled with trauma, betrayal and lost love, yet we’ve finally reached the final chapter of this gripping Welsh noir — and there are plenty of questions that need answering!
The six-part series began with the murder of Abbi Rayner, in a fashion that was eerily similar to the murders of two nurses by Paul Harvey 12 years ago. DI Ffion Lloyd (Elen Rhys) and DS Rick Sheldon (Richard Harrington) believed they got the right man back then — but did they?
Abbi's ex-boyfriend, Ryan Moss, was charged with her murder, yet quickly released as the prime suspect became Mel Owen (Matthew Aubrey), who was the adopted child of Paul Harvey (Ian Puleston-Davies).
Harvey claims he was wrongly convicted for the original murders and when Ffion discovered Rick coerced a witness to ensure he was sent down, she started to wonder if he was telling the truth. Harvey claimed Owen was responsible for those heinous crimes, yet his troubled son — whom Harvey abused as a child — killed himself before charges could be brought.
However, when Harvey’s mobile phone was discovered in his cell, we discovered the convicted killer had been having secret conversations with someone called "John Shaw", who boasted about his role in killing Abbi Rayner. Furthermore, in a nerve-shredding final scene of episode 5, Rick’s wife Helen was kidnapped!
But who is John Shaw? Did he kidnap Helen? Did he murder Abbi? Did he have a hand in the killings that rocked Pembroke Dock 12 years ago? Was Paul Harvey wrongly accused? …and what is the future for Rick and Ffion? Let's see how the finale played out...
Who is "John Shaw"?
When Rick comes home to find his wife missing, he begins to wonder if Ffion was correct and Mel Owen wasn’t the man responsible for Abbi Rayner’s death. “She’s a nurse and tomorrow is day seven!” he shouts at Ffion frantically, after telling her about Helen's disappearance.
It seems the man who’s been texting Paul Harvey and calls himself "John Shaw" was the man who came to her door and kidnapped her while she cooked Rick a romantic meal.
When the police eventually recover CCTV from Whitehaven prison, where "John Shaw" visited Paul Harvey, Ffion is shocked to discover the mysterious individual is none other than Jamie Tilston (Sion Alun Davies), her father’s carer. “He was right under your nose,” says Rick to his partner “How did you not know?”
After searching Tilston’s flat, the police find he’s been watching Helen (Rhian Blythe) for some time and after guessing the passcode to his iPad they’re able to track his phone to Cleddau woods. However, they’ve also discovered more messages exchanged between Tilston and Harvey - which the convicted murderer must have deleted - showing how Harvey was grooming and encouraging his young protege to commit murder.
Ffion is sure Tilston has Helen in a bunker, but the three the police know of are all empty. Yet she knows her father, Griff (William Thomas), worked on a case that involved another one, which isn’t on official records. Luckily he has the exact location in his files and Ffion suspects Jamie got the idea to use it after Griff told him about it. They find Jamie inside but Helen is nowhere to be found.
What is Jamie Tilston's link to Paul Harvey?
During questioning, Jamie Tilston reveals he came to Pembroke Dock after his mother, whom he’d spent years caring for, died of a fentanyl overdose. Yet when Ffion pushes him on how he was groomed by Paul Harvey, Tilston shocks her by admitting telling them he's Harvey’s son.
The police didn’t know Harvey had any biological children, yet Tilston says his mother came from Pembroke Dock and left the area shortly after having a fling with Harvey. Tilston says he paid her to leave after he met his wife Anna, effectively choosing her over his mother.
Crucially, Tilston claims he visited his father 12 years ago — around the time of the Heart Knot Murders — and says he killed those two nurses as well, letting his father take the rap for it. However, Ffion believes he’s lying and is simply trying to clear his father’s name. He also says Helen is dead, but is he telling the truth?
What happened to Helen?
After learning Paul Harvey’s wife, Anna (Eiry Thomas), was Helen's last patient before she went home, he goes to visit her, but she drugs him and ties him up in her cellar.
When Rick comes around, he finds himself next to his wife, with Anna looming over him. “I want you to see her die,” she says darkly. Upstairs, Ffion has arrived and when she hears the mysterious DNA on the scarf used to kill Abbi Rayner is female, she realises Anna has been lying to the police all along.
However, when Ffion comes down to the cellar, Jennings manages to overpower her, before revealing she lied about all the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. She then goes on to explain how she resented her son Robbie — aka Mel Owen — after he returned from war, a "pathetic drunk".
Who killed Mari Quinlan and Sian Hinton?
“Nurses let my babies die,” says Anna when Rick asks about the historic murders, before explaining that she drugged Quinlan while telling her all about the "abuse" she suffered at Paul’s hands. She then strangled her and hid her body in the bunker in the woods.
Later on, Sian Hinton was asking questions at the hospital, so Paul Harvey abducted her for his wife and they kept her alive to find out what she knew about her colleague's death, before killing her. When the authorities suspected Harvey, he agreed to take the blame. “That’s true love, Rick,” says Anna darkly.
Anna then reveals that Rick cheated on Helen with Ffion before going to strangle her, yet Ffion manages to break free and save Helen. Luckily she survives, although it looks like her and Rick’s marriage is over.
Who killed Abbi Rayner?
Anna Harvey ordered Jamie Tilston to kill Abbi, yet he "bottled it", so she told him to get Robbie’s DNA on the scarf, but says “he messed that up too”. When the police realised Owen hadn’t killed Abbi, Anna says she decided to frame Jamie instead.
Anna Harvey also reveals that when Jamie failed to kill Abbi, she stepped in to commit the murder, before hiding the body and ordering Jamie to hide Abbi’s scarf in Owen’s den.
