Page 77 of Murder in the Family

CARMEL PIPER

We weren’t that close, to be honest. I was just one of her ‘ladies who lunched’. We’d get together every six weeks or so – it was just light-hearted stuff. Gossip, one-upmanship about holidays, that sort of thing; you know what it’s like round here. All very harmless, in the big scheme of things.

HUGO FRASER – off

Did you ever see her get a call or text that might have suggested she had a lover?

CARMEL PIPER

(laughing)

I’m not sure how you could tell! But the answer is no. I never saw her rush off to answer her phone, or suddenly say she had to be somewhere else, or anything like that.

To be honest, I got the impression she kept her life pretty compartmentalized. A place for everyone, and everyone in their place. If you know what I mean.

CUT TO: Studio, as before.

BILL SERAFINI

What about the sports bag angle? Any better luck with that? Though it’s another long shot, I know.

HUGO FRASER

’Fraid not. There were and still are any number of gyms in that part of town, not to mention the tennis courts at Queen’s, and three squash clubs to my certain knowledge.

JJ NORTON

Is it worth cross-referencing the members of those clubs with the owners of red MGBs?

ALAN CANNING

I doubt many of them still have their records for 2003. I mean, yes, clearly we canask, but even if the information still exists they almost certainly won’t give it to us.

MITCHELL CLARKE

Data Protection. Bane of my bloody life.

LAILA FURNESS

And this man may not have belonged to a club anyway. He could just have been, you know – a jogger. Does anyone still jog these days? Is it still a thing?

JJ NORTON

(laughing)

I think you have to ‘run’ to be taken seriously now.

ALAN CANNING

(not laughing)

So to summarize, based on Maura Howard’s new evidence, I tend to agree that Caroline Ryderdidhave some sort of extra-marital relationship, but as at now, we don’t have any live leads on who the man in question might have been.

LAILA FURNESS

But you’ll keep looking? At the cars, I mean?

ALAN CANNING