The Chestnut Man Hide and Seek Ending Explained: Who is the Killer?

‘The Chestnut Man’ returns for its season 2, ‘Hide and Seek,’ with a new crime and an intriguing mystery behind it. In Copenhagen, a series of killings takes place where the victims are harassed by a stalker before disappearing and eventually ending up dead. As the local police set up a task force for the investigation, Detective Naia Thulin finds herself at the helm. Around the same time, Mark Hess finds himself back in town due to a family emergency. Despite the awkward past between them, the two agents inevitably team up to work the case of the killer, whose calling card seems to have something to do with a counting nursery rhyme. As the case unravels, a possible connection is detected to the death of Emma Holst, a teenager, whose mother is unable to move on from the tragedy even two years later. SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek Recap

Recently divorced Zara Solak receives cryptic and vaguely threatening messages from an anonymous stalker who constantly sends her photos of herself in real time from some hidden location. Eventually, the photos begin to get closer and closer to her house until the stalker finally abducts her. The next day, her ex-husband files a report, attracting the attention of Naia Thulin. The event also happens to coincide with Mark Hess’ return to the city after his brother, Jon, finds himself admitted into the hospital due to a coma. As a result, the duo’s paths cross a couple of years after their last encounter. As it turns out, Hess and Thulin dated for six months after the conclusion of their first date together. Nonetheless, their relationship ended after the Europol Agent left one day without any warning or explanation.

Even so, as the same case enters both their orbits, they inevitably end up working together again. Once Zara’s dead body is found in the woods, propped inside a human-sized nest, Thulin is finally given a task force to investigate the case. At her insistence, her boss agrees to have Hess on the case. Off-the-bat, the latter is interested in sniffing out any similarities between the murders of Zara and Emma Holst, a teenager who was killed two years ago, and was found in a similar nest. Soon enough, they learn about an active stalking complaint lodged by a local man named Andreas. The stalker seems to be employing the same tactics as they did with Zara. However, the new victim himself is convinced the perpetrator is his ex-wife, Sofie.

When Andreas goes missing, Thulin and Hess find themselves at Sofie’s house for some questioning. Surprisingly enough, the latter ends up spotting the victim tied up in the house across the street. Yet, by the time the duo is able to get to him, the killer has already slit his throat and fled from the scene. Furthermore, that same night, Thulin also receives a text from an anonymous number that seems to be replicating the killer’s stalking techniques. Nevertheless, she decides against reporting it, knowing that it would only get her thrown off the case. Still, for safety, she decides to keep Hess in the loop. Afterward, the two find a woman, Ditte, who perfectly fits the profile of a potential victim. She’s in the process of separating from her husband after being unfaithful in their marriage.

However, the one thing unique to Britte remains the violent disposition of her husband, Peter. Initially, Hess is reluctant to deem the husband a suspect, but the scales tip out of his favor when the latter attacks a family law firm with his gun and abducts his wife in broad daylight. Tragically, during this altercation, Thulin ends up losing her life in an attempt to stop the abusive husband. Afterward, Ditte and Peter’s dead bodies are discovered, along with a murder weapon that seems to tie every killing together. As a result, the authorities label Peter the killer as they begin working on closing the case. Yet, Hess refuses to accept this conclusion. Even though his grief over Thulin’s sudden death is undoubtedly clouding his judgment, too many facts of the case fail to add up. Ultimately, he finds a way to figure out these answers in Thulin’s research, which includes a murder case from 1992.

The Chestnut Man Hide and Seek Ending: Who is the Killer?

While Peter offers a plausible candidate as the killer behind the murders, Hess can’t shake off the feeling that the man is simply being used as a scapegoat. His connections to the other victims are flimsy and coincidental at best. Moreover, he doesn’t comply with the theories that the Europol agent and Thulin had crafted around the case. Initially, the higher-ups are compelled to believe Hess is simply mourning the loss of his partner and lashing out with denial and workaholic tendencies. For the same reason, he ends up getting taken off the case. Nonetheless, he doesn’t let any suspension stop him from getting to the truth of the matter. His resolve becomes all the more stronger when he learns about an older case that Thulin had been looking into prior to her death.

In 1992, a pedophile named Thoger Staal was apprehended. He had molested and killed multiple children, and the last dead body was found by a group of schoolchildren out on a field trip in the same area as his lakehouse. The killer left each victim’s dead body in a nest, made to resemble a fallen cuckoo bird. Notably, although Staal was found, the authorities always suspected him of having a covert accomplice whose identity was never discovered. This accomplice was believed to have helped the pedophile gain the children’s trust and help him hide the evidence of his crimes. Initially, Hess goes through the list of suspected accomplices, trying to rehash the past.

Given the similarities between the staging of the dead bodies in the 1992 case and the recent killing, Hess believes the killer he’s looking for must have some connection with Stall. Eventually, he uncovers this connection after the 1992 killer’s DNA sample is found on one of the victims. Since Stall is long dead, the DNA sample can mean only one thing: his offspring is behind this new batch of killings. Thus, Hess finds himself interrogating Bjarke, who was a teacher on the 1992 school trip, which also happened to include Staal’s daughter, Leah, as one of the students. As the teacher reveals he suspected Leah of crucifying a cuckoo bird back then, the Europol Agent finds his answers. Meanwhile, Leah, who now goes by Signe, abducts another victim, Marie, Emma’s mother.

How is Signe Connected to the Killings?

After the revelation arrives about Lead/Signe’s involvement in the killing, her motivation becomes the next big mystery. This secret is revealed to Marie, the latest in the long line of victims. The latter has known Leah as Signe for years now. The two met shortly after Emma’s death and became close friends. Therefore, as Marie’s personal investigation led her closer and closer to uncovering the truth about Emma’s murder, Signe inevitably abducts her, unwilling to expose her secret. Thus, her backstory and driving motivation are finally revealed. After the arrest of Staal, his daughter went on to grow up in an orphanage, occasionally moving between foster homes, but never getting adopted. Afterward, in her adulthood, she went on to marry Roy, a Copenhagen resident. After the marriage, she changed her name to Signe.

Her marriage with Roy remained strong and reliable for years, and the two even had two kids together. This new family provided something to the killer’s daughter that she never found in her childhood: a sense of belonging. Consequently, her entire worldview was shattered when she found out that her husband was cheating on her. Shortly after the discovery, her entire family got in a car accident caused by her and Roy’s fighting. In the end, Signe is the only one who walks away from the accident with her life. As a result, she develops a deep-seated hatred for infidelity, particularly the kind that results in broken homes. In her line of work at the Family Law Firm, she came across many such cases. Eventually, these cases became her hunting ground, and she began going after people who had cheated on their spouses.

Why Did Signe Kill Emma?

From the beginning, Emma’s connection to the rest of the victims proves to be frail and thin, compelling many people to wonder if there even is a connection between her death and the recent serial killer spree. After all, the one unifying factor between all the victims is their identities as parents, who had cheated on their partners, did not apply to the teenage girl. However, the authorities missed many clues by looking at the bigger picture. This isn’t a problem for Marie, Emma’s mother, who has been fixated solely on her murder for the past two years. With Hess’ investigation, the mother’s grief and desperation for answers resurface, compelling her to do some snooping.

Marie learns that Emma might have been in a relationship with an older man in the lead-up to her initial disappearance. At first, she suspects her daughter might have had a relationship with one of her teachers at school. Nonetheless, a different truth emerges. The memorabilia in the teenager’s room and her calendar bring up the name of one stranger: Roy. As it turns out, Emma used to babysit for Roy, who eventually ended up having an affair with the teenager. This is the same Roy as Signe’s husband, which makes Emma the mistress. After the death of her husband and her sons, Signe began to blame the teenager for the entire ordeal. For the same reason, she decided to kidnap her, torture her, and eventually kill her as a twisted revenge plot. In the end, this killing awakens something in Signe, who becomes obsessed with the taste of self-righteous punishment and murder.

Does Hess Die? What Happens to Him?

By the time Hess uncovers the identity of the killer, Signe already has Marie in her father’s old lakehouse, where she plans on killing her final victim. Meanwhile, Detective Sandra, Thulin’s former partner, also begins to realize that Signe, Marie’s friend, is actually Leah. Even so, when Hess arrives at the location, he’s all alone without any backup or even a viable weapon. As a result, Signe is able to get the drop on him more easily, launching them into a game of hide and seek in the back woods of the lakehouse.

Although the Europol agent manages to survive for some time, he is eventually discovered by the killer, who tries to drown him in the lake. His existing injuries and her sheer effort make it impossible for him to escape from her clutches. Yet, in the end, Hess’ life is saved by an unexpected savior. While Signe was occupied with chasing down the Europol agent, her original victim, Marie, had the time to free herself from her binds and come after the killer herself. Thus, when she’s busy trying to drown the agent, Marie sneaks up on Signe and stabs her to death. This action comes as a notable catharsis for the mother, who has been seeking justice for her daughter’s murder throughout the series.

With Signe’s death, her reign of terror finally comes to an end, and the case is ultimately closed. Marie faces possible criminal charges and a few months in prison, since other factors make it impossible to rule out the killing as simple self-defense. Even so, the mother doesn’t regret her choice for one moment. As for Hess, he comes to his own realizations. Once the case is closed, he finally has no choice but to reckon with the reality of Thulin’s death. It makes him realize that his flight-risk tendencies are preventing him from setting down roots and finding real happiness. Furthermore, he’s perpetually stuck in a cycle of letting down those he loves. For the same reason, he makes the decision to quit Europol and find a new job in Denmark so that he can remain a reliable grounding point in Le’s life.

Read More: Is The Chestnut Man Based on a True Story?