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‘So, the murderer . . . who did you have in mind?’ asked Theo, topping up my wine.

I’d had a couple of thoughts, more than a couple. For the last few days I’d been in that place I always got to when I was writing a book where everything became about that. Whatever I was doing, wherever I was, it would be there, festering in the back of my mind. Character traits would be lurking, hazy scenes that had something but needed developing further would pop up out of nowhere, usually in the middle of the night when I couldn’t actually be botheredto get up and write them down. It was exhausting in a way, but it was also fun and exciting; a rush.

‘One thought I had was that our main protagonist could have a sister,’ I ventured. I hadn’t been planning to share my idea until it was clearer in my own head, but we were here now and needs must. ‘Maybe they’re even twins. And they’ve always been a bit competitive in the way twins are, but they are also really close and tell each other everything. Except for one thing – the twin has been sleeping with her sister’s husband. And he’s refusing to leave his wife. What if the dominant twin sister wants this one final triumph over the sister who is standing in the way of her one true love?’

‘Yes!’ said Theo, sitting forward on the edge of his chair. ‘So she’s there being all supportive and helping with the search for her brother-in-law, taking over like she always does. And nobody would ever suspect it was her. We’ll drop in a few subtle clues as we go along, but we want the reader to be shocked, ultimately, don’t we?’

I added a couple of notes to my document, smiling to myself.

‘You know, I’m actually quite enjoying this,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to say I told you so, but . . .’

I held up my hand, laughing. ‘Please don’t.’

My phone buzzed again. It was like I was fine-tuned to hear it, even if I’d buried it in the darkest depths of my bag. And if I ever did switch it off I’d be panicking the whole time that when I turned it back on there would be a slew of emergency messages involving the worst possible things happening to my entire family. In a way, it was less stressful to check it every few minutes so that I could be sure that tragedy hadn’t yet occurred. Although funnily enough, I hadn’t felt like that at all this evening. I’d been enjoyinggetting immersed in our plot. And Theo had been far better company than I’d imagined he could be.

‘Sounds like you’ve got another message,’ said Theo. ‘Is it your dad, do you think?’

‘Not sure. As you reminded me, I’m not supposed to be looking at it until bedtime. Whoever it is will have to wait until then.’

Theo looked impressed. ‘You’re really taking this seriously.’

‘No point doing half a job,’ I said, even though I was itching to check my phone.

‘It’ll be my brother again, anyway,’ I said, as much to myself as to Theo. ‘I’m funding him through a Masters and now he needs me to help him sort accommodation,’ I said, although I wasn’t quite sure what had made me share that information. Sometimes the (often self-imposed) demands on my time and money stacked up until the pressure was so immense I had to literally scream into my pillow. I supposed that Theo was the equivalent of my pillow, for tonight at least, and I was tempted to vent.

‘What’s he studying?’ asked Theo.

‘Computer science,’ I said.

Theo winced.

‘Your worst nightmare, too?’ I asked.

‘I can’t even use Excel properly,’ he admitted.

‘Zach was always into all of that, even when he went off the rails a bit when he was in his teens. Nearly messed up his GCSEs. I felt crushingly guilty, because it all happened when I was at uni myself.’

‘Did you move away?’ asked Theo.

I shook my head. ‘I commuted in to London. But I had lectures, obviously, and I wasn’t always at home to micro-manage every single thing Zach did – or as it transpired, didn’t do.’

‘Where was your dad?’ asked Theo.

I shrugged. ‘Working mostly. Around. I don’t know, he’s never been good at that sort of stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Keeping tabs on his kids. Making people do their homework.’

Theo was chewing lightly on his lip, teeth pressing into plump raspberry flesh. It was very distracting.

‘You seem under quite a lot of pressure to be a mother figure for your entire family,’ said Theo after a while. ‘You have a sister as well, right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘She’s great, but she does tend to get caught up in her own problems, of which there are a LOT. And she has two kids, which means she hasn’t really got the time to help out with Dad.’

‘That’s on you,’ said Theo.