Disclaimer

Catherine remembers the police investigation after the accident. She denied knowing Jonathan, so the police let her and Nicholas fly home to England. When she got home, she concealed a bite mark on her neck and decided she didn’t need to tell Robert the truth, since Jonathan was dead. 

At 4:00 am, Catherine receives a phone call from Nicholas, but she doesn’t get to the phone in time. She listens to his sobs on her voicemail and rushes out of her mother’s house. She takes a taxi to her house, where Nicholas is supposed to be.

Stephen thinks about Nancy’s intentions for The Perfect Stranger. She imagined details of the story, particularly the affair, but Stephen feels the feeling of truth is more important than actual facts. For example, the book includes the fact that Jonathan’s girlfriend leaves the trip early, but in reality Sarah came home because they had a fight, while Nancy changed the reason into a family emergency. After Sarah returned, Sarah’s mother called Nancy to rage about something, but Stephen couldn’t hear what. Later, Nancy called Sarah about Jonathan’s death and sent holiday cards to the family, but Sarah never returned her calls.

Catherine barges into the house and looks for Nicholas. Robert is asleep, so Catherine dumps water on him to wake him up. She asks about Nicholas and whether Robert told him anything. Robert doesn’t think Nicholas is in danger and uses the opportunity to yell at Catherine. Catherine plays Nicholas’s sobbing voicemail to make Robert believe her, and Robert accuses her of causing the problem. Catherine ignores him and starts calling hospitals and the police. In the spare room, she finds evidence that Nicholas has been doing drugs and that he was fired from his job. She confronts Robert with the information. He is dumbfounded. They don’t know how to find Nicholas. Catherine receives a phone call from an unknown number.

Stephen takes down Jonathan’s Facebook account, though he claims Nancy wants him to leave it up. He notices that Nicholas hasn’t updated his profile recently. Stephen thinks about Nancy and Jonathan’s closeness and how sometimes it isolated him within their family. Nancy thought Jonathan could do no wrong and loved him unconditionally, though Stephen harbored doubts that their son was brave enough to save a life. Stephen lights a bonfire and burns Nancy’s notebooks. Stephen hallucinates Nancy sitting at his laptop alerting him to a new post on Nicholas’s profile.

Unknown persons left Nicholas at St. George’s Hospital after he suffered a stroke from cocaine overdose. The hospital connected him to life-saving machines, but he still hasn’t awoken after two days. Robert and Catherine take turns spending time at Nicholas’s bedside. Catherine accepts responsibility for her lies leading to this moment, and she resolves to tell Nicholas the truth. Catherine’s mother thinks Nicholas is in hospital with the measles, and Catherine decides not to correct her.

At 4:00 am, a nurse tells Catherine to take a break, so she goes outside. Friends and coworkers send her support, but Catherine ignores their messages. When Catherine goes back inside, she sees Stephen standing over Nicholas. She lunges at Stephen and pushes him over. The nurses hold Catherine back as they tend to the injured old man, and Stephen leaves apologetically. Robert arrives and Catherine warns him about Stephen, but Robert reveals he invited him. Catherine is stunned, but Robert pushes past her.

Stephen recounts how he made himself look presentable and went to the hospital. He imagines how differently the events would have transpired if Robert had greeted him instead of Catherine. Stephen planned to unplug Nicholas’s ventilator and IVs, but Catherine found him first. He is shocked by her protectiveness of Nicholas, since he has imagined her as too selfish to care about her son. Robert calls Stephen to apologize and invites the old man back to the hospital. Stephen takes pills for pain and dozes off. He wakes to the sound of broken glass and his front door opening. He dresses, goes downstairs, and sees Catherine in his garden. She pushes past him to get inside, and she tells him to sit down. She starts talking to him, but he feels like she is spitting at him.

Catherine breaks the glass of Stephen’s front door to unlock the latch. She notices the filth and disarray of the house. Stephen meets her downstairs and listens silently as she tells her story. Catherine’s memory returns to the night Jonathan bought her a drink. Catherine ignored his advance and went back to her room alone. Catherine and Nicholas spent the next day together at the beach, playing and dozing off in the sun. Jonathan secretly took photos of her in these moments. Catherine and Nicholas went into town to visit the fair. At the taxi hub, Catherine noticed Jonathan had also gone into town and was watching her.

Catherine put Nicholas to bed and decided to get a glass of wine for her final night in Spain. She brought her drink back to the room and sat on the balcony. When she returned inside for bed, she saw Jonathan had broken in. He covered her mouth, pulled a knife on her, and made her close the door to Nicholas’s room. After cutting his own arm to prove his seriousness, Jonathan forced Catherine to undress while he took pictures. Catherine tried to lunge toward Nicholas’s door, but she fumbled, and Jonathan slapped her. Nicholas woke up, and Jonathan forced Catherine to put him back to sleep. He brandished his knife over the sleeping boy.

Catherine continued undressing for Jonathan, and he made her change into the lingerie Robert bought for her. Jonathan directed her as he took pictures, making her masturbate for the camera. Catherine pleaded with him to leave. Jonathan then raped Catherine; she didn’t fight him for fear of waking Nicholas. When Jonathan finished, he acted like nothing happened, thanking her and offering her a cigarette. Catherine smoked with Jonathan on the balcony, needing a cigarette to clear her head, and then he left. When Catherine finishes her story, she leaves Stephen’s house and cries in her car.

Stephen sits in shock and silence. He searches for Nancy’s voice in his head, but he can’t hear her anymore. Stephen takes the bus to the cemetery, sits on a bench, and watches dog walkers pass by. He takes a full doggy bag out of the trash and throws the feces at Jonathan’s grave. Then he washes the headstone and sobs. A stranger talks to Stephen about his lost family members, telling Stephen that his son was brave for saving a child. Stephen wonders if Jonathan was brave or reckless.

Back at home, Stephen looks through the photos again. He sees them in a different light, remembering how Jonathan took pictures without people knowing. He now sees fear in Catherine’s eyes and connects the posed pictures to Jonathan’s pornography. He is ashamed that he forced Catherine to reveal this painful secret, which she hadn’t told anyone before. Stephen calls Catherine to own up to what he told Nicholas. Catherine tells Stephen that he must be the one to tell Robert the truth.

Robert notifies Catherine that Nicholas has woken up while she is in a therapy session. Catherine goes to the hospital to be at her son’s side. She plans to tell Robert about the assault if Stephen doesn’t, but she worries Robert won’t believe her. She will tell Nicholas when he is more stable. She remembers trimming Nicholas’s nails as a child, which she will do again for him as he recovers. Robert is late for his turn with Nicholas, and Catherine relishes the extra time with her son.

In the hospital café, Stephen tells Robert the truth about Jonathan assaulting Catherine. He tells Robert that Catherine explained her story the day before, and he believed her. Robert is shocked, but he quickly turns his anger on Stephen. He grabs Stephen’s shirt and asks why he didn’t question Nancy’s version of the story sooner. Stephen apologizes for publishing the book and for re-victimizing Catherine. Robert sits with his own guilt for tormenting his wife while she relived memories of the assault. Stephen walks past Nicholas’s room and sees Catherine asleep at Nicholas’s bedside.

Robert enters Nicholas’s room and apologizes to Catherine. Nicholas opens his eyes and focuses on his parents, which the doctor confirms is a good sign of recovery. Robert and Catherine drive home silently. Catherine lets Robert hold her hand before bed, but she avoids his questions about why she concealed her story. In the following weeks, the couple focuses on Nicholas’s recovery, and Catherine tends to Nicholas like a child. Robert tries to tell Nicholas that Stephen lied, but Catherine stops him, wanting to tell her story for herself.

As Nicholas recovers, Catherine and Robert try to mend their relationship. Robert hates Stephen, but Catherine feels sorry for the old man. Catherine saw Jonathan’s death as justice for his crime, which is why she never brought the assault up. Robert continues to ask why Catherine didn’t tell him, even when she got the book, but the conversations leave Catherine tired and resentful. 

Robert and Catherine bring Nicholas home. Two weeks later, Catherine tells Nicholas the truth. Nicholas wonders why Jonathan saved him, but Catherine has no answers. When she lies down, Catherine thinks about the morning after the assault. She tried to put on a brave face for Nicholas and bought the dinghy to keep him happy. She fell asleep on the beach from exhaustion and shock, and in those moments, Nicholas drifted out to sea.

Stephen tries to reconcile Jonathan’s last act of bravery with his sexual assault of Catherine. He concludes that Jonathan sacrificed himself out of guilt. Stephen wonders if Jonathan had also assaulted his girlfriend Sarah. Nancy and Stephen both covered up Jonathan’s concerning behavior, creating a fantasy about who their son was. Stephen never challenged Nancy about Jonathan, which led their son to behave like there were no consequences for his actions.

Stephen recalls trying to replace Jonathan with one of his students. He lied to friends that his son was at university, and he visited the student without Nancy knowing. Only after getting beaten up did Stephen realize the folly of his actions. 

Stephen takes up gardening and continues to have bonfires. He burns the photos, gives Geoff the laptop, and donates the rest of Nancy’s things to the charity shop. He hears a message on his answering machine, and he writes a letter to Catherine.

Catherine sits with her mother. Nicholas arrives for a visit. Nicholas is going through rehab, and Catherine has quit her job. Catherine remembers finding out that she was pregnant when she returned home from the vacation. She told Robert she was going away for the weekend to help a friend, but really, she had an abortion. As Catherine helps her mother get ready for dinner, Nicholas gives Catherine a letter from a lawyer, which contains Stephen’s will.

Stephen threw himself silently into one of his bonfires, dying by suicide. He left his entire estate to Catherine. Catherine and Robert visit Stephen’s now-vacant house, walking through the filth he left behind. Catherine asks Robert for time alone in the house. Catherine decides she is going to leave Robert, since she cannot forgive him for his hatred. Catherine walks around the garden and remembers Nicholas’s childhood. She wonders if the Brigstockes had similar memories in their house.

Catherine meets with Stephen’s lawyer, who gives her a letter. In the letter, Stephen apologizes for his actions and hopes Catherine will use the house and apartment to build her new life. He encloses a negative he didn’t develop, which shows Nicholas peeking through the door at the hotel. Catherine realizes Nicholas must have seen everything, but Nicholas insists he can’t remember. Catherine hugs Nicholas, and he lets his mother comfort him.