Page 153 of Murder in the Family

No pressure, eh, Nick.

NICK VINCENT (Producer)

Don’t do yourself down, kid. Anyway, I’ll leave it to you to explain.

Nick goes round the table to perch against the windowsill, tapping Tarek lightly on the arm as he passes.

CLOSE-UP on Tarek as he pulls out a chair and sits down.

TAREK OSMAN

(fiddling with the laptop and papers)

OK, so me and the team have done some more digging on ‘Luke Ryder’ to see whether we could find out anything more about his past. And we managed to turn up something – about when he was on Assos.

FOOTAGE of Tarek on location in Greece. Panorama across the harbour: fishing boats, quayside tavernas, brightly coloured houses and blue hills beyond.

CUT TO: Tarek walking up a street – flowering creeper up the walls, a cat blinking in the sun, tables and chairs outside a bar. He stops outside and turns to camera. He’s not wearing sunglasses and is squinting slightly.

TAREK OSMAN

You probably remember that Rupert Howard didn’t have any pictures of himself and Luke from the summer they met here, and we weren’t able to find anything useful online either. So we decided it might be worth coming over and actually talking to people.

CUT TO: Interior of bar. Tarek is with a man in his forties. The walls are painted teal blue, with a whitewashed floor and white wooden furniture.

TAREK OSMAN

I’m here with George Nicolaides, who took over the bar from his father ten years ago. I think I’m right in saying you weren’t in Assos the summer Luke Ryder was working here?

GEORGE NICOLAIDES

(speaking perfect English with a slight American accent)

No, I was at university then and took the summer off to go travelling.

TAREK OSMAN

And looking round you’ve clearly had the bar refurbed since 1998?

GEORGE NICOLAIDES

Right. We completely remodelled it when I took over. It had a much more traditional look under my paps.

TAREK OSMAN

Almost unrecognizable from what it is now, right?

GEORGE NICOLAIDES

(laughing)

You could say that. Paps was a terrible hoarder – he wouldn’t throw anything away until it fell apart. By the end none of the furniture matched and he had posters up that were older than me. But that turned out to be helpful in the end. For you, I mean.

TAREK OSMAN

Yes, talk us through that.

GEORGE NICOLAIDES