Sally Lindsay and Neil Morrissey play a newly divorced Emma and Pete, who are navigating the harsh reality of dividing up the life they’ve built together. However, Emma’s life gets even more complicated when she goes on her first solo holiday to Cyprus, only to meet handsome hotel owner Nico who steals all her life savings. Soon Emma’s quest to get her money back leads her into a very dangerous world.
Shocked at seeing the man she thought she’d fallen in love with again, Emma grabs the gun that Nico was carrying and finds it isn’t loaded. He tells her that he isn’t a killer but refuses to say what happened to Annika when she asks.
Before they can talk anymore, George pulls up and Nico hides Emma in his house. The men argue over Emma and George hits Nico, telling him that if she goes to the police about Annika, he will frame him for Annika’s murder.
Pretending he doesn’t know where Emma is to protect her, Nico offers to help George look for her in the woods and tells Emma to stay in his house because George won’t look for her there. She falls asleep on the bed with a gun, which she now has bullets for, and Nico doesn’t return until the next morning.
He wraps Emma’s sprained ankle in a bandage and she asks if his name is really Nico. He says it is, but that some of the others have ‘work’ names but he could never remember who he was meant to be. He says he has worked for George for a long time and got into the job because he needed to provide for his parents. Emma asks again about Annika and he admits she is dead, but promises he didn’t kill her.
When Emma asks why Nico doesn’t go to the police about George, he tells her that George is a very powerful man and owns half the police, and says if George finds out he helped Emma, he will kill him.
Nico looks after Emma’s sprained ankle. (Image credit: Channel 5) Nico asks Emma where she is staying and offers to take her back to her hotel, but she wants to drive herself, so they find her car in the woods and discover the tyres slashed. Nico helps change them and Emma leaves, however, when she arrives at her hotel room the door is ajar. Worried that George has tracked her down, she goes in only to find Pete waiting for her instead.
Relieved that Emma is okay, Pete tells her he and Suzie have been calling her phone all night and that he is there because of the worrying message she left Suzie the day before. Desperate to get Emma home safely, Pete tells her he has booked them a flight for that evening and goes to take her hire car back. However, as soon as he is gone there is a knock at the door and it’s Nico.
Nico begs Emma for help, saying she is right and he needs to get away from George and he has a plan to get George arrested and also get Emma’s money back. Emma isn’t sure at first, but the idea of getting her life savings back is too tempting and she agrees. They decide to trap George as he tricks another woman out of her money and Nico has information about the gang’s next target. Emma strikes up a conversation with the unsuspecting woman by the bar who tells her she has a new fiance, a new life in Cyprus and is about to get the keys for a new luxury villa at 3pm that afternoon.
The woman is oblivious to the fact she is being tricked like Emma was, so when Emma asks to see the estate agent’s details of the house, she is happy to chat and Emma sneaks a look at the villa’s address. She relays the address to Nico but before she goes to the police, Nico asks her where the photos of him with Annika were so that he can remove them. She tells him about George’s office and that the key to the locked drawer is under the lamp, and before she can leave he kisses her, telling her that not all of his fling with her was fake.
Taken in with Nico once again, Emma is shocked when he asks her if there is a chance for them to be together after all this has happened, but before she can answer, he says he knows he doesn’t deserve her and drives off.
Pete drives Emma to the police station where she intends to tell Constable Kyriakon, who she met in episode 2, about George. But Pete has other ideas and drives past the station and straight towards the airport. Emma is fuming, telling him they are no longer married and doesn’t have to listen to him, before getting out of the car and making her own way to the police station.
Once there she tells Constable Kyriakon that she believes she isn’t one of the bent coppers that George is working with and persuades her to come to the villa at 3pm to catch George tricking another woman out of thousands of pounds. Constable Kyriakon is reluctant, but eventually agrees to go, and by this time Pete has caught up with them and they all head to the house together.
Emma and Pete take Constable Kyriakon to catch George. (Image credit: Channel 5) Once there, they find George at the address and it looks like they’re about to catch him in the act, however, he is one step ahead of them and the couple there aren’t the ones from the hotel that Emma chatted to, but a different couple who are apparently just viewing a house.
Emma is speechless while Constable Kyriakon is cross that she has been given false information. Emma is convinced that Nico has tricked her again and tipped George off about what was happening. Devastated that she has been duped again, Emma tells Constable Kyriakon everything about Annika’s murder and gives over the information about everything she knows before promising to fly home.
However, when Pete goes to her room to get her bags she sneaks into a taxi and goes to Nico’s house to confront him. He is adamant that he didn’t double-cross her, and that George must have found out they were on to him another way. Instead, he tells her that he got evidence about George’s crimes at his house after finding a USB stick with a spreadsheet detailing all the women he has swindled and the money he took from them.
Constable Kyriakon tries to help Emma. (Image credit: Channel 5) Emma is thrilled they now have proof that George took her money and asks if he backed up the document, which he says he has. But just as the pair share a charged moment, Nico is shot in the head by George from behind. He then holds Emma at gunpoint and she pleads for her life. As he smashes the laptops with the evidence on them, he tells her that she has no idea what is going on here and prepares to shoot her. But before he can, he’s hit around the head from behind, and it is Pete, who has turned up after following Emma’s taxi.
But instead of knocking George out, Pete has accidentally killed George and they now have a double murder scene on their hands. Pete goes into panic mode and although he saved Emma’s life he is horrified he’s killed a man, so Emma takes charge and drives them to the airport where she says they need to just act normally and get back to the UK.
But as they are checking in, Constable Kyriakon arrives at the scene of the crime after following Emma’s earlier lead and is stunned to find the two bodies. A search for Emma starts and Constable Kyriakon calls her at the airport, which Emma ignores. But she then texts her, offering her help.
Knowing that what has happened isn’t going to just go away, she encourages Pete to get on the plane, but instead of following him, Emma finds some police at the airport and hands herself in for George’s murder, covering for her ex-husband.
Love Rat airs on four consecutive nights at 9pm on Channel 5 from Monday, March 11 to Thursday, March 14, 2024.
