Page 83 of Murder in the Family

HUGO FRASER

Do we know what happened to him? Did he survive?

MITCHELL CLARKE

Right now, your guess is as good as mine. But I’ve started going through death records for the weeks after the accident, to see if I can find anything. Though we have no way of knowing whether any of this has anything to do with Luke Ryder, of course.

LAILA FURNESS

True. The hit-and-run might have been caused by someone else entirely. This could just be a total wild goose chase.

BILL SERAFINI

Good work, though, Mitch. Very good work.

JJ NORTON

Agreed. And it’s also something the Met don’t seem to have discovered at the time, so props for that.

ALAN CANNING

Only if it turns out to be relevant. As Laila says, it could have absolutely nothing to do with it.

HUGO FRASER

(ignoring him)

How do you top that, then, Bill?

BILL SERAFINI

(smiling and getting to his feet as Mitch sits down)

I’ll do my best, Hugo. I’ll do my best.

(turning to face them)

So, while Mitch’s been chasing Luke across the Outback, I’ve been looking at where he pitched up next. Back in 2003, the UK police established that when he left Sydney he went first to Bali, and then to Cambodia.

He pins up maps of both countries with markers on Kuta and Kampot respectively.

In both places he just did casual work, or at least as far as I can determine. If there were other untoward ‘incidents’ I haven’t found them. Though in the light of what Mitch has just told us, the fact that he doesn’t seem to have gone in for bar work in either location may be significant. Along with the fact that he didn’t stay long in either place. His next stop after Cambodia was Beirut—

(He pins up another map.)

–where he arrived in January 1997. We don’t know quite what he was doing there or why he chose it, but Lebanon was hardly the obvious choice for a holiday in the sun. The country was still recovering from a savage civil war, the government was weak to non-existent in some parts of the country, and there were areas where terrorist groups like Hezbollah and HAMAS operated pretty much with impunity. As Luke was to find out.

He turns and puts up a press cutting from theNew York Times.

New York Times

August 5, 1997

CUT TO: CNN FOOTAGE of the aftermath of the attack. Bodies lying in the street, the tangled wreckage of the bus, debris and broken glass strewn across the ground, then a tracking shot in a crowded and chaotic hospital, people on makeshift beds, one missing a leg, several with bandages around their heads and faces.

LAILA FURNESS

(clearly shocked)

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