Page 22 of Murder in the Family

MADELEINE DOWNING

(looks uncomfortable)

No, I didn’t. I don’t think money mattered that much to him. I mean – look at the way he’d been living the previous few years. Surfing, bar work – they’re hardly the career choices of someone who aspires to a five-star lifestyle, now are they?

And in any case Caroline wasn’t interested in swanky hotels or expensive restaurants. That sort of thing wasn’t important to her.

CUT TO: Abigail Parker, sub-captioned ‘Friend of Caroline Ryder’. She’s in a dark suit, glasses, and a white blouse. She’s evidently in her workplace: a desk, filing cabinets, a computer.

ABIGAIL PARKER

I think money wasincrediblyimportant to her. It was all about status. Being the ‘chatelaine’ of Dorney Place. Even if she did only inherit it by marriage. And quite apart from that, any buildingthat old is always needing work done on it – roof, plumbing, just general maintenance. That house positivelyatecash.

GUY HOWARD – off

But my father left her well-off, didn’t he?

ABIGAIL PARKER

Well, yes and no. I mean, yes, compared to most people. But she had significant outgoings, like I said. And there were school fees too. Though there was no question of sendingyouto Eton; she simply couldn’t afford it. Though Luke wasn’t exactly a pauper. He might have been living like a beach bum but he had a big inheritance coming his way from his grandparents.

GUY HOWARD – off

Did he really? Hadn’t there been a big falling-out years before? That’s what Luke led people to believe.

ABIGAIL PARKER

You’re right, there had. But Luke reached out to them soon after he got married. It turned out his grandfather had died a few years earlier, but his grandmother was still alive and very spry by all accounts. And given Luke was the only grandchild he could reasonably expect to inherit the lot.

I think he kept it quiet that he’d contacted her because he didn’t want people to think he’d gone up there with a begging bowl. Scrounger is never a good look.

GUY HOWARD – off

But Mum knew?

ABIGAIL PARKER

Of course she knew. She was the one who encouraged him to do it in the first place.

(laughs)

In fact, you could say that if anyone was a gold-digger in that marriage, it was Caroline, not Luke.

GUY HOWARD – off

But that couldn’t have been a motive for my mother to kill him, could it? If he died before his grandmother the cash wouldn’t go to Mum. She wouldn’t get anything. She had a vested interest in keeping him alive, at least until the old lady pegged it.

ABIGAIL PARKER

(suppressing an expression of distaste)

Well, that’s one way of putting it. But yes: the inheritance couldn’t have been a motive. And that was no doubt what the police concluded, too.

CUT TO: MONTAGE of pictures of Luke and Caroline: at the wedding, on honeymoon on the beach, in the garden at Dorney Place, with Guy and his sisters. None of the children is smiling. Camera zooms out and we realize these photos are scattered across the table in front of the team.

BILL SERAFINI

So, I think we can all agree the picture’s more complex than we thought?