Q12 - Any surprises along the way - i.e. you thought the story was headed somewhere and ended up somewhere else. Where in your writing process and/or the book did that happen? How did you reconcile yourself with the developing arc of the story?

A - The overall plot did not change during the writing, but the detail was often difficult. For instance the stepmother is found in possession of a locket that appears to connect her to the killers of her husband's first wife. For a long time I could not work out what the object should be. It evolved from a torn piece of paper into a wedding ring and finally became the locket containing the pictures of Thomas's father and mother. I had also plotted a chapter in which the police set up a meeting involving the stepmother at which she incriminates herself, and Thomas's psychiatrist was to appear as a witness. These scenes were jettisoned at a fairly late stage. It was important for me to learn to be able to abandon material that had initially seemed rich in promise but was now just getting in the way of the plot's development.