Page 154 of Murder in the Family

This is what the place looked like before we started the refurbishments.

He passes over a photo. CAMERA ZOOMS in to show the bar with a corkboard behind it, pinned with layers of beermats, taxi flyers, Post-its and photos, many of them curling at the edges.

As you can see a lot of that stuff was years old.

TAREK OSMAN

But you didn’t throw it away? When you did the refurb, I mean?

GEORGE NICOLAIDES

No, we boxed it all up and gave it to Paps. He’d never have forgiven me if I’d dumped it.

TAREK OSMAN

Which is why we have him to thank for these—

CUT TO: Sequence of three stills. The first is of ‘Luke’ and Rupert Howard, their arms around each other’s shoulders, clearly quite drunk. Someone has scrawled ‘Assos Amigos’ in biro across the bottom. The second photo is of the bar. It’s late in the evening and the lighting is low. Rupert can be seen at one of the tables with a group of lads his age, glass in hand, slightly red-faced. Further back, and not so visible, ‘Luke’ is sitting at a table with a woman; she’s in her forties with short dark hair. Only part of her face is visible.

In the third picture she and ‘Luke’ are standing in sunlight in the street outside the bar; she’s wearing sunglasses and a hat, he has his arm round her, pulling her quite close. She’s smiling up at him, one hand touching his hair. The picture appears to have been taken from inside the bar, without either of them being aware of it. There’s no one else visible in the picture.

CAMERA PANS out to the two men looking at the photos on the table.

TAREK OSMAN

Do you have any idea who this woman is?

GEORGE NICOLAIDES

I’m afraid not. Like I said, I was away that summer. I did speak to Paps about it and he remembered her face but not her name. He said he was pretty sure she was English and was renting a flat in the town somewhere, but that’s all I’ve managed to find out.

CUT TO: Studio. The team shift slightly in their seats. This is a lot of new information to digest on the fly.

TAREK OSMAN

We also spoke to some of the older residents while we were in Assos, and one old lady thought the woman might have been called Irene. But someone else came up with Carrie, so your guess is as good as mine.

LAILA FURNESS

But if she was renting a place there must have been some sort of paperwork—

TAREK OSMAN

Probably, but it’s so long ago it’d be a miracle if anyone still had it. And in any case rentals like that can be pretty informal in Greece.

HUGO FRASER

For which read ‘to avoid tax’.

BILL SERAFINI

But it does give us another potential victim of ‘Luke’s’ scams, and another set of suspects who might have wanted to track him down.

LAILA FURNESS

(to Tarek)

What about Rupert – did he remember this woman?

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