The Only Suspect 5 - The End (Pages 189 - end)

 

RATING: VERY GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

The book starts, in my opinion, quite slowly, but the second part becomes more and more engrossing.

It starts with Marina and Rick planning to escape. He finds a flat in London where they can stay, and he decides to leave his job. He doesn't tell anybody the truth; at work he says that he wants to travel to India, and he tells Rollo that he has been sent to India for work. 

The plan was for Rick to hire a car and pick up Marina from work, and then he would take her to the house so that she could disconnect the alarm as Drew instructed her to do every day. She would pick up a holdall with her things, and she would try to find her passport.

Marina leaves the car and Rick waits and waits. When she doesn' reappear, she decides to go to the house and taks the trail from the back. Then she finds her dead with a injury in her head. Quickly he gets into the house and calls the police, reporting that he has found a woman. Then he runs from the place, afraid to be found there by the police. 

He locks himself up in the flat that he had hire, sobbing. On the radio the news cofirms that Marina is dead, and he keeps getting informed about her death on the radio or the newspaper. He expects tha Drew, her husband, will be arrested, but he reads that he had an alibi as he was interviewing someone for a job in his company. When he calls Rollo, the latter tells him that the police have been to see him, and he should contact the police.

The novel takes an unexpected turn when in a newspaper there is a piece about the murder and he sees some photographs, realising that the woman who has been murdered is not the woman who he loved and knew as Marina. At the same time he learns that he has become the prime suspect. Then little by little he realises that he has been framed. Marina Stanley was the woman he and Rollo saw in the house. hen he remembers the passport that he found, and he realises that must have been her real name, and her remembers her name was Kirsten, and by calling he office where she worked, she finds out that her surname was McKenzie. 

Little by little Rick investigates and goes through some articles that Rollo's journalist friend gave them,and  he realises that there are two missing copies, so he goes to talk to Rollo and he says that this is all his friend gave. Then he remembers that Rollo took some photos during his birthday party, and if Kirsten was in one of them, he could go to the police and prove that he was tricked and he didn't know Marina. The photos prove ineffectual as Marina appears alone, which doesn't prove that he and Rick were in a relationship.

Then he calls his colleague because he needs to find out where Kirsten lives. Si, the colleague, agrees to do so, using the fire alarm to empty the office and use that time to get Kirsen's file. Once Rick has the address, Rick goes there, and Kirsten is there and lets him in. Kirsten spills the beans and tells him that Drew helped her out of the club where she worked, and then he made her be aware of her debt. Drew had money problems, and he made her believe that his plan was a robbery, and he wanted someone to blame. And that is how Rick became the victim. Rick can't understand how she could believe something like that; spending four months in the deceit just for a robbery. Rick persuades her to go to the police with him the next day.

Rollo conacs him through the pager he gave Rick, and he tells him that Drew has taken Kirsten. She has called him as she only had the number of the flat. Rick and Rollo get to the house, and here is where we get one of the twists. Rollo is bad guy; he confesses tha when he suspected that Kirsten was up to no good, he blackmailed her, and he even got from her the money Rick had given her. Now his plan was to get his hands on part of the money that Drew would inherit. So he was not going to allow Rick to ruin his plans. That leads to a figh, and at first, Rick thinks he has killed Rollo. However, he just pretended o be dead, and when Rick fainted out of exhaustion, Rollo killed him and buried him on the trail where the police have dug out.

In present time Kirsten appears in the house as he has seen Rollo's photograph in the newspaper, and all she wants is to know where Rick's body is, and he shows her. We discover that after Rick's disappearance, Rollo didn't get the money he expected as Kirsten forced Drew to go to the police and confess as he had some recordings of him confessing and planning the alleged robbery. As Rick is missing, his mother and sister go to see Rollo, and they are outraged because Rollo doesn't seem bothered, and he has taken Rick's room and took a new tenant. The mother even goes to the newspaper and names Rollo. So he decides to change his name to Alex, his second name.

In present time Rollo/Alex and Beth finally separate, and then when a few weeks later he goes to the house as a favour to Beth to look after the dog. When he is walking the dog, he sees Frankie, the woman living in Marina and Drew's former house and his three children. She is upbraiding the children because they have knocked down their shed. Alex volunteers to help, and he arranges the shed so that it covers the area where Rick is buries. He also says that some time later he and Frankie start a relaionship and he moves into the house and is able to watch where Rick was buried every day.

I enjoyed the book. The first part was a bit slow for my taste but I loved the second part.