Readers Guide for It Could Have Been Her | Spoilers | Character List | Q & A

June 2005

A young girl talks about a woman named Claire who came to their house. Her parents urged Claire to stay longer, which feels very creepy. 

Present: Jane

Jane Trevally calls an estate agent to look at her home, Rosebery Hall. She inherited it from her parents and now it needs a tremendous of work. After the agent leaves she cries and then walks her dogs.

She finds a lost white terrier without a collar and takes him to the vet, who scans his chip and finds out that his name is Hugo and he belongs to a Mr. Tucker of London. Jane decides to try to return the dog.

Jane meets up with her stepson, Dexter and they head out. When they get to the dog’s home, Thornwood, has a vague memory of being there in her twenties, after her first divorce. She met a man in a club who said he was looking for a nanny/housekeeper. She went to his house, met his wife, got a very bad vibe about it all, and left.

A man Jane has never seen before answers the door and is happy to see Hugo. Jane is ever more certain that she was at this house all those years ago. 

Jane’s vet calls and says she learned from a woman named Helen Yaxley that Helen’s tenant, a woman named Rose White, had a white terrier and just vanished. 

Stuart: Ten Years Before

Stuart watches a woman at the White Swan pub in Hampstead who is heavily day drinking and has a white terrier puppy. She’s around thirty and clearly an alcoholic.

Jane: Present

Jane goes back to talk to Mr. Tucker, who denies that he knows Rose White. She glimpses a middle aged woman inside the house. Jane has dinner with Tony, her ex. She explains her involvement in the Simon Smith story and says she might hire a PI to look for Rose, given her own creepy history with the house.

Jane calls Helen to get more information. Helen says that Rose adored the dog and would not have left him. 

Tony tells Jane she can use his house for her London investigations. Back at home Helen tells Jane that Rose was young and blond.  Jane wanders around Rosebery, thinking about all the addiction, depression and mental health issues in her own family. 

Stuart Ten Years Before

Stuart finds the woman’s mittens at the White Swan and follows her to a school building, where she picks up a girl who looks about ten.

The next day she’s back at the pub. Stuart also used to be an alcoholic. He strikes up a conversation and learns that the woman’s name is Jessamine and her daughter is Daisy.

Jane: Present

Jane explores the area around Helen’s property and finds a small house. Bill Newsome lives there and he knew her family. He saw Rose last week, and she seemed agitated. Jane finds a school hoodie with the initials DB.

Stuart Ten Years Before

Stuart and Jessamine start spending their days together in the pub. Jessamine says she and and Daisy live in her mother’s house and that her father disappeared ten years ago. He finds their cottage and hears Jessamine calling her dog … Hugo.

Allen

Allen had a difficult childhood and wanted a family and stability. He fell in love with Annie and they married and lived in a cottage on her parents’ estate in Hampstead Heath. They had two children, Jessamine and Jasper. Annie stopped being interested in sex so Allen hired sex workers, one of whom he hired as a nanny/ housekeeper. 

Jane: Present

Jane learns that the sweatshirt is from a school Islington, North London. Jane heads to Islington. She has a momentary break in confidence, thinking of all her past flaws (including being a “pain in the arse” to Paddy Swann) but is good at gaining people’s confidence.

Jessamine

Jessamine recalls that her father hired an au pair, Sandra, who bought Jessamine earrings. Her mother threw Sandra out and a new au pair girl came, but had to live in the attic.

Jane: Present

Jane heads back to Thornwood to talk to Mr. Tucker, who tells her to leave. She starts researching and learns that Mr. Tucker’s first name is Stuart and that a woman named Jessamine Black lives at Thornwood. She finds out that both Jessamine and a dog trainer she knows named Natasha de Large worked on a movie together, so she messages Natasha.

Stuart 9 Years Before

Stuart and Jessamine start sleeping together. He’s sleeping in a squat so she allows him to stay at Thornwood. He wishes he’d said no. He meets Annie, her mother. 

Jane: Present

Dexter comes over to discuss the case. He offers to pretend to have gone to school with “DB.” They start asking around the neighborhood and a boy named George remembers her. She left after lockdown ended. 

Annie

She met Allen when she was thirteen. She was an only child. They had two children. She didn’t consent to the au pairs but didn’t want to sleep with him either. 

The new au pair is a problem. Allen comes home with another woman, Jane. Annie helps her when she wants to leave.

Stuart 9 years Before

Jessamine  tells him the name of Daisy’s father: Harvey Moore. He has a wife named Sherri and two sons: Alex and Jason. He lives off an inheritance. She invites him to move in.

Annie hates him. She asks him to dispose of a dead cat, which he wants to bury, but she doesn’t want her garden dug up. In the bureau drawer, he sees handcuffs and a clown mask. He feels like the house has a sinister vibe.

Jane: Present

George’s father, Spencer, suggests they talk to Daisy’s caregiver (also called Jane) who lives nearby. New Jane says that Stuart started looking after Daisy when she was ten. She says Daisy had a mother and grandmother, plus a grandfather and uncle. The grandmother threw her husband out. And there were young girls staying here. 

Jane decides to reach out to another cast member in the movie Jessamine was in, Oliver Bloom. She researches the title of Thornwood and orders a background check on Jessamine.

Helen messages that the has found a photo of an older man with a mustache sitting on a sofa between two teens. The man is the same one who invited Jane back from the bar in 2000.  The boy has gloves on and is holding a clown mask. One the back of the photo it says The Last One of Us, Thornwood, 2005.

Jane gets her reports: Thornwood is owned by Allen and Anne Black, and before that by Vivienne Rich. She does a search and finds out that Vivienne dies in 2000. She makes a timeline.

Stuart 9 Years Before

Jessamine says the clown mask was her brother’s. While she’s out he looks at old photographs, including one of the cat he had to bury.

Jane: Present

Jane explores Hampstead Heath. She finds an old conservatory and a small square outhouse that is padlocked. She’s able to open it and finds a chair and metal rings screwed into the wall. (At this point I’d have called the police!)

Jane is horrified and convinced that being chained up was her fate if she hadn’t escaped back in 2000. She goes to the White Swan pub and calls Oliver, who says Jessamine fell in love with him and stalked him. She had strange marks on her body.  She also told him she was infertile.

Jane asks the White Swam pub about a wake held for Vivienne in 2000. The bartender doesn’t remember that but recognizes a picture of Jessamine, who was a heavy drinker and had a dog. Jane shows him the picture of Jasper and Jessamine with their father. He says that the police looked for a missing person at their estate.

Jasper

He recalls the au pairs and that the police came looking for one of them. Then Claire Connelly showed up and destroyed everything.

Stuart Nine Years Before

He wants out. He tells Jessamine that he’s leaving and she’s very unhappy. He moves out and a few days later gets a call from Annie that Jessamine has been arrested. Annie tells Stuart he needs to take care of Jessamine. That her father spoiled her. When he tells her he’s leaving, Jessamine threatens to kill herself. So he agrees to stay.

Annie

2005 was a good year. Jessamine wanted to be an actress and would be in a movie, get an office job, fall for her boss, and move back in. Then girl found Allen’s cat and he invited her inside.

Jane: Present

Jane decides to track down Tobias Wilson, a security consultant for Tony. He tells her that Allen Black has been missing since 2006 and that a young woman at Claire Connelly also went missing from the Black’s neighborhood in June 2005.

In 2020, Claire’s case was pulled by the cold case unit. Detective Yasmin Brooks interviewed the family and noticed that they had a young child who looked just like Claire.  She also searched the area around the Blacks’ property and found guitar supplies that could have belonged to Claire.

Jane goes back to Spencer and George’s house to ask George if he has any photos of Daisy. She sends the photo to Helen, who says that is the girl who stayed with her. 

Claire

Claire goes out for drinks with friends in Hampstead. She’s headed there when she hears a cat whose collar is caught on a branch.

Jane: Present

Jane hosts a party for her stepchildren (Wilf, Charlie, Isabella and their partners, Dexter and Romy). Surrounded by her found family, she realizes she needs to let go of Rosebery. As she’s leaving Tony’s house the next morning, she sees a circus poster with a picture of white gloved hands.

Stuart: Seven Years Before

Jessamine is back to drinking heavily. She’s unhappy and jealous that Stuart’s daughter Blaise is visiting. Jessamine explodes at dinner and she calls him a pedophile for taking interest in Daisy.  Stuart asks Daisy if she ever sees her father and she says yes, she used to. And she has a phone number for him.

Stuart calls Harvey Moor. His son Jason says that his father took a DNA test and Daisy is not his daughter. He confronts Jessamine, who tells him that if she ever tells Daisy that, she will kill him.

He tries to talk to Annie, who says that Daisy isn’t her concern, but seems nervous.

Jane: Present

Jane wonders if Daisy was trying to find her uncle at the circus and decides to drive there. She asks about Jasper and is told he vanished a week ago. 

Claire

Claire wakes up and a woman is offering her water. A man and a boy with a clown costume come in the room. he does magic tricks.

Jane: Present

At the circus grounds, a woman says that Jasper was a weird loner and that Jane can talk to the other clowns. One clown, Dave, says that Jasper was childlike. She looks in Jasper’s caravan and finds a wig, a mask and a letter forwarded to him by someone named Stella Madden. The other clowns give her Jasper’s phone number. 

Stuart: Seven Years Before

One the night of Stuart’s dinner with Blaise, Jessamine says she’s very sick, but he thinks she’s faking. He gives Daisy her lunch and leaves the house. Jessamine calls him repeatedly.

Blaise begs him not to go back to the Black house, but he wants to feed the dog and get Daisy out. When he gets there, someone hits him over the head.

Jasper

Claire acts like an au pair for a year and then Allen takes her downstairs and he doesn’t see her again. He resolves to slip her a knife.

Jane

Jane goes in search of Stella Madden, bringing the photo that Daisy left behind. Stella says Jasper was her lodger. Stella thought he might have been involved in an incident where a woman was harassed in the park by a man in a clown mask. The letter she forwarded Jasper was from a doctor. Jane finds the doctor: Anthony Twist.

Stuart: Seven Years Before

He wakes up with bandages around his head, locked in a small room.

Jessamine says she didn’t mean to hurt him. She tells him he’s on the old au pair room. Four days later, he’s still locked in there. He thinks his ear is infected. She finally lets him out and learns that she deleted all his phone contacts. He uses Daisy’s phone to message his daughter.

Jane: Present

Jane tells Dr. Twist about her messed-up childhood and asks him about Jasper. He says that Jasper left treatment but when Dr. Twist saw the newspaper article about the woman harassed in the park, wrote Jasper a letter. 

Jane and Dexter meet Stuart Tucker at a pub and he tells them that Jasper left home at seventeen. He tells Jane that she cannot call the police.

Stuart says that a detective came to the house asking about Claire Connolly, and that Annie claims that her husband left. DI Brooks wanted to talk to Daisy, and asked Annie why Daisy has no birth certificate, and Annie says it was a home birth. Brooks came back with a warrant but found nothing. 

Stuart: Six Years Before

He found a packet of photo negatives and got them developed.  One was of a girl with short dark hair wearing leg restraints. He angrily showed the photo to Jessamine. She says her father used to bring sex workers to the house and shackle them. But she denies that Claire was ever there. He orders her to tell him what went on in the house, but she cries and says she was just a kid.

Jane: Present

Stuart says Annie blamed the shackles on Jasper. Jane mentions the outbuilding she say with the shackles and Stuart once again asks her please not to go to the police yet.

Dexter tells Jane that it’s time to bring in the police. Tobias has found the name of the girl terrorized by the clown in the park: Avril Christmas. They find her and she ways that he did magic tricks and then pleasured himself in front of her. And that he was really small. 

Talking about the Black family makes Jane think about being neglected as a child. Dexter tells her to sell the money pit and come to London.

Stuart messages Jane and asks her to come over. She stops at Spencer’s house and asks him to call the police if she doesn’t come out of Thornwood. At Thornwood, Daisy walks into the kitchen.

Daisy

After DI Brooks left, Daisy realized from the photo that Claire must be her mother. A year ago, she found the photo of her grandfather with Jessamine and Jasper. She decides to find Jasper.

She rented a room from Helen and went to the circus. She took photos of him and followed him around. She introduced herself but he didn’t want to talk to her. Jasper agrees to talk to her the next day. He says when he ran away to join the circus, Claire was alive.  That Annie knows what happened. Daisy tells him that Jessamine is an abusive alcoholic. Jasper says there was a big fight. He runs, she chases him and then he tries to kill her. She ran off. 

Jane: Present

Daisy says she called Stuart and they went looking for Hugo. Jane asks where Annie is and Stuart and Daisy take her to the outbuilding where she sees Annie’s body. 

Daisy admits to pushed Annie down the stairs to her death. They all go in Jessamine’s room and tell her Annie is dead. Jessamine says to call the police and say that she killed her mother.

The police arrive and Jessamine confesses. She says her mother killed her father and they both killed other people too. Seven women in total.

Under a trap door are the remains of Allen and the seven women. Annie killed Allen for being in love with Claire, and then killed Claire. Annie gave the baby to Jessamine and made her pretend it was another man’s baby. Yes, Jessamine grew up in a terrible family, but Jane still doesn’t trust her.

Dexter and Jane discuss what happened to Jasper. Jane thinks he probably took his own life. Jane has decided to sell her house and move to London. Daisy is staying with Spencer and George.

Jasper’s body is found in the woods in Dorset.

Daisy and Stuart spend Christmas together. Daisy has changed her last name to Connelly. She wants no contact with Jessamine.

Epilogue: Eighteen years earlier

Jasper arrives for his appointment with Dr. Twist, who hypnotizes him. He sees Claire. Jessamine hated Claire.

One day, Jessamine finds Claire dead and Jessamine holding the knife that Jasper slipped her.

Jessamine claims that Claire killed Allen and was trying to run away. Jasper asks Jessamine why she didn’t let Claire go.

Timeline for It Could Have Been Her

1987: Jessamine born to Allen and Annie Black

2000:  At age 29, Jane meets a guy in a bar, goes back to his place, gets a creepy vibe, and leaves

2005: Claire the au pair arrives at the Black House in June, and isn’t seen after that.  

2006: Allen Black disappears (Annie says later). Jasper also leaves home around 2005-6.

October 2006: Daisy is born.

2008: Jasper boards with Stella. During that time, a woman is harassed in a nearby park by a man in a clown mask.

2015-ish: Stuart meets Jessamine at the pub

2017: Jessamine is arrested when Stuart leaves her. 

2020: DI Yasmin Brooks from the cold case unit re-opens Claire’s missing persons case. 

2026: Rose White (aka Daisy Black) goes missing.

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