Page 255 of Murder in the Family

LAILA FURNESS

And the point is that, at a subconscious level, Guy associated that event with the father he loved ‘going away’ and never coming back.

This is a little boy who was experiencing profound grief over the loss of his father. And not only had no one apparently noticed that fact, but the trauma he’d experienced at the time of that death had prevented his grief from being expressed in any remotely healthy way.

He was angry and bereft and confused. Nothing in his world made sense to him any more. The only thing thatdidmake sense was that it was all fine until Luke came along; in his young mind, it wasall Luke’s fault.

And that night, deep in a dissociative state, he did something about it. He made Luke ‘go away’ too.

Cut back to: STUDIO.

Laila sits back and shakes her head; she looks deeply troubled.

LAILA FURNESS

I blame myself – I should have put all this together long before. All the signs were there – all those photos of him looking lost and unhappy, the disruptive behaviour, the ‘daydreaming’, even the damn cake—

She takes a deep breath and turns towards the screen.

Guy – trust me, you need to deal with this. Properly, this time. You need to talk to someone—

She stops.

The camera swings slowly round past the team so that we can see the screen; there’s no one there.

The chair Guy was sitting on is empty.

CUT TO: FOOTAGE from Ep 1. Guy in the sitting room of Dorney Place, wearing a crisp white shirt and jeans, the expensive Breitling watch his mother gave him, the silver wrist chain. He looks happy and relaxed, on the brink of a life-changing opportunity.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

So now its 2023 and it’s been nearly twenty years since all this happened. Why are you revisiting it now?

GUY HOWARD

Because I want to know the truth. Because that’s what I do, as a film-maker. And because my family has lived with this thing hanging over our heads for almost two decades and until someone finds out who did it and puts him away none of us will ever have any peace.

I want to find the truth.

Whatever that truth turns out to be.

FADE OUT

- end credits -

Episodes seven and eight

Broadcast

November 7

Importance:High

Date:Sun 26/11/2023, 9.18

From:Bill Serafini

To:David Shulman

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