Page 50 of Murder in the Family

But where does this get us – apart from the inference that Caroline wasn’t exactly on the sister-in-law’s BFF list?

JJ NORTON

I think it indicates Caroline could be ruthless if there was something she wanted. Let’s face it, even if she had absolutely nothing to do withAmanda’s death she moved in on Andrew pretty sharpish afterwards.

BILL SERAFINI

That doesn’t give her a motive for murdering Luke, though, does it? It might explain why she went ahead and married him in the first place: she wanted him so she was damn well going to have him, whatever anyone else said.

But it doesn’t explain why she’d want him dead.

MITCHELL CLARKE

Maybe he was having an affair. That’s the oldest motive in the book.

Bill SERAFINI

Actually we raised that possibility with Peter Lascelles when we went to see him. Here’s what he told us.

CUT TO: Peter Lascelles INTERVIEW with Bill and Alan.

PETER LASCELLES

We looked into that, naturally. Even the mere suggestion of infidelity can throw a bomb into a relationship, especially one where there is a significant age difference. And Caroline never struck me as the sort of woman who’d tolerate being scorned.

BILL SERAFINI

So you questioned her explicitly about it?

PETER LASCELLES

Absolutely. And she flat-out denied Luke was having an affair. She said she ‘would have known’. That she ‘could always tell when he wasn’t telling the truth’.

And everyone else we spoke to said pretty much the same thing: they’d never seen anything to suggest Luke was playing away. If there wasanother relationship going on he was keeping it extraordinarily quiet.

BILL SERAFINI

And you believed Caroline?

PETER LASCELLES

I did. I don’t think she was lying to me.

CUT TO: Studio. Guy is now sitting at the table with the team.

GUY HOWARD

I promised you all that you’d only see me in front of the camera in this series if there was a very good reason. This is one of those times. Because it turns out Peter Lascelles was wrong: my motherwaslying to him. Though more by omission, than commission.

Have a look at this.

CUT TO: INTERVIEW with Maura Howard. This time she’s sitting in the kitchen at Dorney Place, wearing an oversized cowl-neck jumper, pale blue jeans and a pair of Ugg boots. She’s pulled the sleeves of the jumper down over her hands, as if she’s cold. The room doesn’t look very lived in.

GUY HOWARD – off

How were things between Luke and Mum that autumn – in the weeks before he died?

MAURA HOWARD

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