This Cleddau/The One That Got Away episode 4 recap contains spoilers... Mel Owen is now the prime suspect in the investigation into Abbi Rayner's murder, yet Rick and Ffion disagree about whether he could have had a hand in the historic murders from 12 years ago. However when Owen is interviewed by detectives, the terrible legacy of the abuse he suffered at his father's hands comes to the surface...
Rick (Richard Harrington) and Ffion (Elen Rhys) decide to pretend their brief smooch never happened, but it’s clear he’s shaken and conflicted about the whole thing. Ffion is more circumspect, but when she heads back to her parents’ house she finds her father flicking through photos of the pair’s engagement party.
Five days have now passed since Abbi’s murder, with the police fearing the killer could strike again on day seven. They’re hoping Mel Owen (Matthew Aubrey) — who stormed Mati’s school with a gun — could be their man, so they’re going over the timeline of the original Heart Knot Murders once again.
The first victim back then, Mari Quinlan, suspected Owen — aka Robert Jenkins — who was 17 at the time, was being abused while living with Paul Harvey (Ian Puleston-Davies), when he turned up to A&E with broken ribs. A few weeks later she was seen arguing with Harvey in the street, before getting in his van, never to be seen alive again. Six days later Mari’s friend Sian Hinton went missing, with her body later being discovered in the woods.
Owen was in his attic bedroom on the night Sian was killed, which Rick suggests means he knew nothing about what was going on and that Harvey killed the nurses to conceal the abuse of his foster children. Rick is convinced Owen murdered Abbi, as her scarf was found in his cabin, but Ffion’s not so sure.
Meanwhile, Ryan Moss has filed a complaint against Rick and Ffion, claiming he was coerced into a confession, and cracks are starting to appear between the two detectives as they look back at Harvey’s confession. Ffion wonders if Owen also had a role in the original murders and wants to talk to Harvey, to the exasperation of her colleagues.
Yet worse is to follow when DCI Vaughan (Ioan Hefin) says Owen’s attack at the school has compromised their judgment, assigning Owen's interview to their colleagues, Celyn (Aled Pugh) and Mogsy (Mali Ann Rees).
Mel Owen's demons return
During the interview, Owen seems extremely agitated and when pushed on the murder of Abbi Rayner, he replies “We don’t talk about the nurses!” Ffion believes he’s still deeply affected by what happened 12 years ago and wants to unlock his story.
Celyn asks him about the Heart Knot tattoo with the initials RJ (a reference to his former identity, Robert Jenkins) on his back, yet he gets more irritated, telling them Robert Jenkins is dead, before having flashbacks to the abuse Paul Harvey subjected him to, such as making him sleep in ‘the hole’ when he was a kid.
Later on, Ffion pays Anna Jennings (Eiry Thomas) a visit and she shows him where Paul Harvey used to lock Owen up when he was young, explaining that's where he was on the night Sian Hinton’s body was moved to the woods. Ffion wonders if Owen could have escaped through the window and done it himself.
She then starts asking questions about Sian Hinton’s widower, Alex Hinton, who saw Harvey’s van coming out of the woods on the night his wife was murdered. At first he said the driver was a white male wearing a baseball cap, before changing it to implicate Harvey, so Ffion sets off to double-check his story, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to see anybody.
Paul Harvey's dark plot
The police continue to question Owen, pushing him on whether it was him driving the van the night Sian Hinton’s body was moved 12 years ago. It looks increasingly like he knew about his father’s crimes and his bunker, even if he didn’t help move the bodies, and he also reveals to the police that he did meet Abbi Rayner on the day she died. (We already knew that though!)
That’s enough for DCI Vaughan, who orders Rick to arrest him for Abbi’s murder, yet Ffion is frustrated the interview was cut short, believing Owen was about to reveal more about those historic crimes and the most recent killing.
In prison, Paul Harvey claims he has new information about the past and his solicitor arranges a meeting with Ffion and Rick, so they travel to Worcestershire to meet him. Elsewhere, Ffion’s father gets confused about Jamie (Sion Alun Davies), his carer. Yet when Jamie starts asking questions about Paul Harvey, we’re wondering if there’s more to him than meets the eye..
For some inexplicable reason, Owen seems to have been sent to the same prison as his adoptive father, who is now getting the guards to send him notes, including an image of the tattoo on his back. It’s too much for Owen who hangs himself in his cell.
Meanwhile at the hotel, we discover a bit more about the break-up of Ffion and Rick’s relationship and how Helen (Rhian Blythe) warned her off, saying she was pregnant with Rick’s child. He thought she’d just moved on and didn’t care about him anymore. “I never meant to hurt you,” he says, before sharing a passionate embrace.
