Page 20 of Murder in the Family

We went out and got pissed and I paid because he didn’t have any money, and then he kipped on the floor because he didn’t have any money, and what started out as just a couple of nights turned into a couple of weeks. I wasn’t living at Dorney Place by then – I’d never felt that comfortable there, to be honest, and it was even worse after Dad died. Hashtag ‘awkward’ as the kids would say now.

Anyway, after I found out I’d got into Cambridge after all (which, frankly, was as gobsmacking to me as it was to my teachers) I went off travelling again. And this time, Luke came with me.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

So when did he meet Caroline?

RUPERT HOWARD

(shifts in his seat)

That wasn’t till my first Christmas vac.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

So that would have been December 2000.

RUPERT HOWARD

Right. She had a drinks thing on Christmas Eve she invited me to – I doubt she really wanted me there but she didn’t exactly have a choice, not when all her friends were going to be there. Appearances, don’t you know.

Luke was staying with me in Earl’s Court so he came along too. I was surprised he wanted to, to be honest – it really wasn’t his sort of thing, butthen again he was never one to turn down free booze.

I thought we’d raid the bar and be in and out in an hour, but when I went looking for him around nineish I found the two of them in the kitchen. Him and Caroline. And no, before you ask, nothing washappening, they were just talking.

I mean reallytalking. I’d never seen him like that around girls before.

(laughs)

Though you could hardly call Caroline a ‘girl’.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

Had he ever shown any interest in women like that before?

RUPERT HOWARD

(raising an eyebrow)

By which you mean older women, I presume? And no, never. To be fair, you didn’t tend to see women Caroline’s age in the sort of places we’d hang out, and even though there’d been older women customers at the bar in Assos he’d never made much effort with them. Polite but perfunctory, if you get my drift.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

So what made this so different?

RUPERT HOWARD

(spreads his hands)

Your guess is as good as mine. When he finally got round to telling me that they were seeing each other I actually laughed. I thought he was pulling my chain.

I mean, yes, she was an attractive woman. For her age. I could even have seen him having a quick fuck just because it was right there on a plate, but—

(hooks fingers in the air again)

—a ‘relationship’? Actualmarriage? No way.

NICK VINCENT (Producer) – off

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