Page 40 of Murder in the Family

You must have realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t just a pile of old clothes.

THE CAMERA ZOOMS in on where the body was found, then morphs slowly into a RECONSTRUCTION of the night of the murder, with the body lying in the dark and the rain, before morphing back out to daylight and the present day.

MITCHELL CLARKE

Right. It was like something out of a horror movie. The state of his face, blood everywhere. The rain coming down.

BILL SERAFINI

What happened next?

MITCHELL CLARKE

I think I just lost it for a minute, to be honest. Next thing I knew there are two coppers coming at me from the house shouting and I just turned and ran.

Some of the others exchange glances.

I know, you’d all have stood your ground, right? Told them what you were doing there? But you weren’tme– a poor black kid from Ladbroke Grove who’d had his fill of Stop and Search—

(stops himself and takes a deep breath)

Thirty seconds laterI’mon my back in the mud, and they’re arresting me for murder.

HUGO FRASER

They arrested you there and then?

MITCHELL CLARKE

Right. Then dragged me round the front and shoved me in a police car. Meanwhile the whole bloody circus is pitching up. Ambulance, forensics, three more cop cars, the works. They just left me there, stewing, while it all went down. I didn’t get processed at Notting Hill nick until gone one.

CUT TO: Maura Howard, same set-up as Ep 1.

MAURA HOWARD

I do remember something happening outside. There was suddenly a lot of shouting, and the sound of some sort of scuffle in the garden and the policewoman who’d been left to look after us didn’t want us going out to look. I don’t remember seeing a man. Amelie may have done – she was at the window – but I can’t remember that.

CUT TO: RECONSTRUCTION, video only, no audio. High-angle down on ‘Mitchell’ as he is led into a police interview room by two plain-clothes officers. They show him to a seat then sit down opposite, their backs to the camera. They start to question him and things clearly get heated very quickly. Footage continues under following.

MITCHELL CLARKE

They kept me there for six sodding hours. Asking the same questions over and over again. What was I doing there, how did I get in. I told them I was a hack, told them to check out my stuff, but they weren’t buying it. And thenhearrived. Peter Lascelles.DIPeter Lascelles.

On the screen the two officers get up and leave, and ‘Mitchell’ is left alone for a few moments. He sits unmoving then leans back in his chair and looks straight up into the camera. The door opens and another man comes in. He’s tall, slightly balding on top. He sits down and the questioning begins again.

MITCHELL CLARKE

And we went over it all again. Same questions, same fucking answers. He seemed to have some sort of mental block that a black man could evenbea journalist. Started asking if I had gear on me – if Isoldgear, if I sold gear to Ryder, ifthatwas what I was doing there—

CUT BACK TO: Team in garden.

LAILA FURNESS

I don’t remember anything about drugs in relation to Ryder – there was definitely nothing in the post mortem.

JJ NORTON

No, there was no mention of drugs anywhere.