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‘Bloody Carla,’ said Theo.

I wrapped my cardigan tighter around myself as a cool breeze rippled under my dress and up my spine. It was the sort of evening-by-the-Med weather that was nice enough that you wanted to wear dresses and sandals and sunglasses but cool enough that when you did, you wished you’d been sensible and worn something more substantial. Mind you, after my disastrous outfit earlier when I’d felt like the least-chic person ever to sit around a hotel pool, I was determined to exude Gallic charm, chilly or not. I’d noticed that Theo, annoyingly, seemed to be doing it effortlessly: tonight he was all casual and tanned, like Romain Duris when he wooed Vanessa Paradis inHeartbreaker, fitting in perfectly with the vibe of the French Riviera. I wondered if maybe he just fitted in with all vibes, everywhere. Certainly the London press seemed to love him, a sore point for me given how things had gone down with theLittle Boy Lostcoverage. Let’s just say that although we wrote the whole thing together, it managed to feel as though Theo was the lead writer and I was his second in command.

‘Shall we walk along the beachfront?’ asked Theo gruffly, nodding to the promenade and the sea beyond.

‘Sure,’ I said, following him across the road and heading for the smooth concrete walkway running alongside the beach, which was wider and more beautiful than I’d thought it would be. The white sand looked as though it would be warm and powdery, perfect to sink your feet into on a warm day. Perhaps I’d do that tomorrow, come down here on my own, slip off my flip-flops, take a walk in either direction to see what I could find.

The beach bars were already hotting up, their doorsthrown open for sundowner cocktails and dinner, many of them housing cool DJs spinning tunes and revving up the hedonistic atmosphere.

‘We should probably start thinking about the book, shouldn’t we?’ said Theo.

I resisted the urge to point out that I’d said the exact same thing earlier that day. His mood had clearly improved since this morning.

‘Well that is why we’re here,’ I said, lest he thought I’d got so caught up in couples retreat shenanigans that I’d forgotten that we were supposed to be working. Hardly.

‘What have you come up with so far?’ he asked, glancing sideways at me.

That would be nothing. I dredged the back of my mind for something useful to say.

‘Maybe we need to work out what it was aboutLittle Boy Lostthat captured readers’ imaginations,’ I offered. ‘I mean, it wasn’t like we were the first people to write a novel about a child going missing, was it?’

The reviews I had been brave enough to read seemed to like the multiple points of view. The fact that we’d shown them what was inside the killer’s head as well as other characters who were caught up in it all. Carla had always said that it was a case of right place, right time plus excellent writing.

‘From what I remember, we worked really hard to show readers that even bad people have good bits, and vice versa,’ said Theo, sliding his sunglasses out of his back pocket and slipping them on, instantly looking even more like an A-list film star than before. I even saw a couple of tourists sneaking a furtive peek in his direction.

‘That’s definitely something we can do again’ I said. ‘Come at the story from several different angles and then somehow link them all together by the end.’

In hindsight, I should have followed that format for both my solo books and then perhaps they would have sold half as well. Naively, I’d assumed that I could write whatever I wanted within reason, and that readers would follow me from book to book, but that hadn’t really been the case and my sales figures had got progressively worse. Also, plotting multiple viewpoints on my own was something I’d avoided doing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, it was just that without Theo there to push me, I stuck to what came more naturally – a single point of view I could really get behind. I supposed that was the beauty of writing with a partner. What did I pushhimto do, I wondered? He’d never said.

‘Now all we need is a starting point,’ said Theo. ‘I don’t know about you, but getting going is the most difficult part for me.’

‘Same, I’m afraid,’ I said.

We walked in silence for a little while. I looked enviously across at the designer shops, wanting to go inside but also knowing that I hated the feeling of browsing in a store that I already knew was way out of my price range. What was the point? But if moneyhadbeen no obstacle, I would have been in my element here: Gucci, Prada, Dior and Balenciaga jostled for attention, and to the other side, I excitedly noticed some of the plush beach bars I’d read about in gossip magazines: The Carlton Beach Club, La Plage du Festival.

‘Are we going to do this task, then?’ asked Theo. He wasn’t wearing a tie, but if he had been, it would have been undone and hanging loosely around his neck. Or was I fantasising about Romain Duris again?

‘Do we have to?’ I said.

I didn’t like to dwell on the past because what was the point when I couldn’t do anything to change it, even though I’d longed and longed for things to be different when I wasyounger. That was probably where my desire to write started – I liked visualising myself living a different kind of life. I’d been able to picture every detail, to imagine what it would have been like if things had played out differently. In my daydreams I was a relaxed, happy child pursuing her great loves outside of school: drama and dance and netball. I had loads of friends and all we did all day was laugh and play. And my mum would be there, waiting for me when I got home from school, a batch of those delicious flapjacks she used to make in the oven. My dad would be at work but when he came home he’d joke around and tease us and make time for us. And I’d play with my brother and sister sometimes but at other times I’d read in my room or have playdates and it wouldn’t matter. I’d spent hours living in this fantasy life, which I’d eventually decided was probably unhelpful. It wasn’t until years later that I realised that my imagination had saved me, in a way, and that it had shaped the person I’d become. And now, through becoming an author, I got to do that for other people – transport them to different worlds, take them out of their own problematic lives for a split second. It was something I didn’t take lightly. I always kept my readers in the forefront of my mind, dwindling numbers or not. I wasn’t sure other writers felt the same. I’d never asked him, but it felt as though Theo probably wrote books to heal something inside of himself, although I’d no idea what because we’d never got to know each other that well. All our energy had been focused on finishing our novel around our day jobs, getting an agent, getting a deal, getting it to sell. And then nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing together. That part of our lives had been over long ago.

‘What made you say yes to coming on this thing in the first place?’ I asked him, as two or three seagulls sailed overour heads looking for their last meal of the day. ‘Carla was quick to tell me that you were already on board.’

‘Well, I thought it was a writers’ retreat, obviously. I’d never have come if I’d known it was this.’

‘Obviously,’ I said, turning my head towards the shoreline so that he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. Did he have to hammer the point home every other second? ‘But why agree to that? With me, after all this time?’

He sighed. ‘Fear, I think. That my writing career is about to go down the pan. That I need to do something to claw my way back up, because the alternative is down, and that’s not somewhere I want to be again.’

I nodded. I got it. His reasons were much like mine, then.

‘What about you?’ asked Theo.

I watched people walking their mostly small and fluffy dogs; the super-svelte runners in expensive workout gear. A couple and a little boy skimming stones out into the water.

‘Family stuff,’ I said. ‘Things haven’t been great over the last couple of years. And I need to support them and that requires me to have a certain amount of income that if I’m not careful, I’m not going to be able to sustain.’

He didn’t say anything for a bit, which I liked. I’d always liked, actually. He never bowled in with an answer without having considered it thoroughly. Sometimes it meant that you thought he wasn’t going to answer you at all and you were about to repeat yourself and then suddenly he’d have this really astute thing to say and you’d realise that he’d been thinking about what you said and actually giving it importance. That was something I rarely felt with other people.