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‘Bonne nuit,’ she said, smiling at us both before circumnavigating the pool and walking back in the direction of the bar.

Perhaps he’d forgotten my question in the interim, that would be the best thing. But there was something about the heady Mediterranean air that made me feel like I’d swallowed a truth bomb; as though it was safe to say whatever came into my head without the fear of repercussions. Which was ridiculous, because our whole working relationship this time around had been based on the fact that there was stuff that had been left unsaid and was probably better left that way. Now I’d gone and rocked the massive, stupid boat.

I picked up an olive between my thumb and forefinger,sliding it into my mouth and sneaking a glance at Theo. Instead of looking put out or closed off, like I’d expected, he was watching me with interest.

‘Care to elaborate?’ he said.

No, no I wouldn’t. In fact, I wanted to take back every single thing I’d just said.

‘You know what? Don’t worry about it,’ I said, making a show of typing a flurry of meaningless words on my keyboard and then opening up a document and scrolling through it for no reason other than to give myself something to do that didn’t involve looking at him. He wasn’t reacting in the arsey, closed-off way I’d expected and that had thrown me. Or had he always been this way and rather than being afraid of upsetting him all of this time, it was actually more that I was afraid of getting hurt myself if we rehashed the past?

‘We can talk about it if you like?’ he offered.

Why, oh why, had I started this?

‘I think we should stick to our plan,’ I said. ‘We’re here to write. And I’m even open to talking about plot, how’s that?’

He looked at me intently for a beat or two, as though he was deciding whether or not to let it slide. Luckily for me, he saw sense and didn’t push the point.

‘I knew I’d win you round eventually,’ he said, smiling softly. ‘Which is why I happened to bring an extremely effective plotting tool with me. Just in case.’

He dipped into his laptop bag and pulled out a pack of lined index cards, presenting them to me like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. ‘Ta-da!’

‘Do you always get this excited about stationery?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘This is actually the most exciting part of writing a book for me. Working out what’s going to happen and where. Moving things around to see where scenes fit best.’

He fanned the index cards out on the table and handed me a pen.

‘Let’s jot down what we’ve got so far. If you can, sum up your chapter in a couple of sentences and write it on the card. One index card for every chapter you’ve completed,’ he said.

I took the pen from him, wishing I could drum up half of his enthusiasm. See, this was myleastfavourite part of the writing process, working out what the hell was supposed to happen. I reluctantly took a card and wrote out the second chapter:wife realises husband hasn’t come back from his swim. Goes to look for himand then chapter four:wife finds husband’s phone. Hint that he is having an affair. She tries to log on to his laptop but can’t work out the passcode.And finally, the chapter I finished this morning, chapter six:flashback: three years earlier. Husband and wife are at a party. Husband says something that upsets her, they argue, she pushes him, causes a scene. The embarrassed party host takes her to one side to cool off – wife pretends everything is fine.

When I looked up, Theo was still scribbling away.

‘I’m not sure I’ve done this right,’ I said, doubting myself now. Perhaps I should have written more detail, but he said a sentence for each chapter, didn’t he?

‘As Melissa would say, there’s no right or wrong,’ said Theo.

‘Melissa says a lot of things,’ I grumbled.

‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got so far,’ said Theo, finishing with a flourish and flinging his pen dramatically on the table.

He laid out the six chapters we’d finished and I could immediately see something that didn’t look right.

‘I think that flashback chapter should come later, don’t you?’ I said, peering closely at it. ‘Otherwise we’re revealing too much about their marriage too soon.’

Theo nodded. ‘Yep, hard agree. We need to drip feed their marriage problems, so that the readereventuallybegins to suspect the wife has murdered him but not until later. Meanwhile, the real murderer is skulking around in the background unnoticed until we decide to reveal them at, say, three quarters of the way in? End of act two?’

I rested my chin in the palm of my hand. ‘Do we actually know who the murderer is? And I suppose the other question would be, do we need to, at this stage?’

Theo gave me one of his intense looks, which almost threw me off. I was on a creative roll and wanted to keep it that way, which would be much easier if he didn’t look so bloody good this evening. ‘I think we need to, yeah. Because ifwedon’t know where it’s going, I don’t think the plot would be tight enough. It needs to be so finely tuned that readers almost have to give it a second read to pick up on all the clues. Don’t you think?’

I put my head in my hands. ‘I’m terrible at this.’

‘You’re not,’ said Theo reassuringly. ‘I get that some writers hate this part. And that’s exactly why we’re doing this together.’

‘If you say so,’ I groaned.