Great to meet up with Belinda Bauer (Blacklands) and
Christopher Fowler (The Bryant and May series) last night
at The Serial Killers Panel at Radlett Library as part of
Hertfordshire Libraries Literary Festival. Not forgetting, of
course, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, who also turns out to be
She-Who-Is-A-Refreshingly-Good-Moderator (editor Sarah) and half
the publicity department from Transworld. We didn't attract the
crowds that mobbed Lee Child the previous week, but we were up
against the UK's first ever televised political debate.
We got to talking about real-life crime, whether we'd ever been
the victims of it, or indeed committed it, and how it might have
affected our writing. By a strange coincidence, Belinda and I had
both experienced intruders breaking into our family homes when we
were teenagers. She distinctly remembers hearing the phone line
being cut as her mother was trying to summon the police. She
describes climbing out of the window, with her mother, to get in
the car and drive to the police station as the longest few minutes
of her life.
Come my turn, I decide to gloss over the time I stole a dinghy
in Newton Ferrers and instead chill the audience with my own tale
of terror. At age seventeen, I'm woken by the sound of my
bedroom door handle being turned. Assuming it to be my mother, I
ignore it. I drift off again, only to feel something under the
bedclothes touching me. It's the cat, I think. I reach down to push
her out and take hold of another human hand.
I turn to see a dark, masked man standing over me. I do the only
thing possible. Scream the bloody house down.
Maybe it isn't coincidence that both Belinda and I have such
stories. Maybe you have to experience real-life terror for yourself
to be able to inspire it in others. Christopher, on the other hand,
told the story of getting to work one day following a burglary and
finding the office full of pigeons. They'd come in through the
broken skylight and couldn't get out again. He spent the morning
trying to explain to Apple why the computers were covered in pigeon
sxxx.
Christopher's most enduring memory of crime could explain why
his crime novels are a little bit wackier than the norm.
It strikes me that people attend these events because they are
curious to find out what makes a crime writer tick. What inspires
us to write the way we do. And I can't help but wonder whether, by
talking to each other, by comparing notes and sharing stories, we
who write are going someway towards answering the same questions
for ourselves.
Margaret from Wigan, and friend Richard, it was lovely to see
you there. Believe me, we are truly and deeply flattered by the
lengths people like you go to, to meet us and buy our books. Thank
you.
By the way, if this is being read by any current (or former)
members of the law enforcement agencies, I put the dinghy back!