Page 186 of Murder in the Family

In the sense that—?

BILL SERAFINI

In the sense that if our theory was right and ‘Luke’ reallydidswindle another woman over there – and swindled her so bad it might have given someone a motive to track him down and kill him – then where would that ‘someone’ have started to look for him?

LAILA FURNESS

Ah, I think I see what you’re getting at. You’d start in Assos, of course. Then Sydney, maybe, given ‘Luke’ was supposed to be Australian.

Certainly not London.

MITCHELL CLARKE

(nodding)

Makes sense. And I agree – Assos would have to be the first place you’d go.

HUGO FRASER

(frowning)

But without knowing this woman’s name I don’t see how that helps—

BILL SERAFINI

Bear with. So the first thing I did was contact George Nicolaides to check if anyone came looking for ‘Luke’ after he left the island.

LAILA FURNESS

I’m surprised Tarek hadn’t asked him that already.

BILL SERAFINI

He had – but neither George or his father remembered anything. But when I caught up with George this time I tried a different tack: I asked if he could think of anyone else who was working at the bar around that time. And he put me onto this guy—

A STILL appears on the screen; a man in his forties, heavy stubble, salt-and-pepper hair; a very Mediterranean face.

This is Vasilis Mourelatos. He lives in Athens now but worked at George’s bar for several months the year after ‘Luke’ left. He told me he was pretty sure a man came looking for him that summer. Which was what the old lady also told me.

CUT TO: INTERVIEW. Bill and Vasilis Mourelatos talking on Zoom. Bill’s at an outdoor restaurant table, clearly still on Assos.

BILL SERAFINI

So what do you remember about this guy, Vasilis?

VASILIS MOURELATOS

I’m afraid I wasn’t there the day he came, he spoke to one of the other barmen. But I remember them mentioning about it to me. It was a British guy. He was looking for Luke Ryder and wanted to know if any of us had information about him. He told my colleague it was important – that we should call him if we knew where Luke was.

BILL SERAFINI

But he didn’t say why he wanted to know?

VASILIS MOURELATOS

(shrugging)

I never knew. Sorry.

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