Page 52 of Murder in the Family

No, not till years later. She said she hadn’t wanted to freak me out.

GUY HOWARD – off

How did she know it wasn’t Luke?

MAURA HOWARD

He’d gone up north that day. And in any case Am heard the bloke’s voice. It was too muffled to make out what he was saying but she said he sounded ‘posh’. Sodefinitelynot Luke.

And there was an old MGB parked out on the road that day. A bright red one. She’d noticed it a few times before as well. Just hadn’t put two and two together till then.

GUY HOWARD – off

But couldn’t it just have been one of the neighbours’ cars? Or a visitor?

MAURA HOWARD

That’s what I said. All I know is that neither of us ever saw it again. Though apparently there was a gym bag on the passenger seat with some T-shirts and trainers in it. If you’re ‘looking for clues’.

(raises an eyebrow)

Good luck with that.

CUT TO: Studio.

GUY HOWARD

(looking round the table)

She’s not wrong, of course. The research team have been looking into it but it’s almost two decades ago and a gym bag and a red sports car isn’t a lot to go on.

BILL SERAFINI

Just to be clear, Amelie never told the police any of this at the time?

GUY HOWARD

No. I guess she was trying to protect Mum – stop the family name being trashed in the papers.Again.We were having a bad enough time without that.

And remember, this incident would have been at least three months before the murder, so maybe Amelie didn’t think it was relevant.

JJ NORTON

I’m not so sure about that. What if Caroline had decided to finish it with this man and he wasn’t accepting it? Maybe he came round to confront her that night and found Luke. They could have argued.

ALAN CANNING

It’s a plausible scenario. One I’d certainly have investigated. And I’m sure Peter and his team would have done the same if they’d been given the information. It could have been a very significant lead.

BILL SERAFINI

(turning to Mitchell)

Do you by any chance remember seeing an MGB outside Dorney Place the night of the murder? You were there.

MITCHELL CLARKE

No, but in that neck of the woods sports cars aren’t exactly uncommon.