The narrative opens with Jonathan Truscott compiling a detailed profile of Paddy Swann: a self-made restaurateur from a modest background who built a profitable coastal restaurant chain, authored cookbooks, and shares his business with his wife Nina. Jonathan notes Paddy’s strong profits, stable marriage, and adult children Aisling and Arlo, concluding that Paddy achieved everything without wealthy backers.

Jonathan contrasts Paddy’s working-class rise with his own privileged upbringing in a Victorian manor with material abundance. He laments his current financial precarity and dependence on transactional relationships with women, which he uses to maintain an image attractive to the person he truly desires. His resentment crystallizes into a desire to be the admired center of attention that Paddy is.

Jonathan then focuses on Aisling Swann, describing her job at a lifestyle publisher in Bloomsbury and her shared flat in the Docklands. He tracks her extensively online, cataloging her tastes, habits, and personal details gleaned from social media, facilitated by her distinctive name.

His surveillance escalates into physical proximity. Jonathan follows Aisling onto a crowded tube, standing close enough to note her scent and small physical details while trying not to be detected. He later sits in the same pub as her, disguised with a baseball cap, eavesdropping on her conversation with flatmates.

From the overheard discussion, Jonathan learns Aisling has a crush on her boss, Ritchie Lloyd, a married publishing director with two children and a lifestyle that includes a house in Ibiza. Aisling insists she would not act on the crush, but her friends tease her, and Jonathan studies this dynamic, reassessing Aisling in light of the information.

Jonathan closes his observation session by leaving the pub after the conversation is drowned out by a large group, returning home to Martha, signaling he was living with Martha at this time while secretly tracking the Swann family.