What do you think of traffic wardens? Their job is all about being nasty. Though the ones round Mount Street seem quite human.
What’s your favourite Lewes landmark? Southover Grange. I love it there. I had a small writer’s block at the end of last year while I
was finishing A Kind of Vanishing, and I sat there just thinking and occasionally jotting down disparate thoughts. Being in that calm space opened up my mind, and I went home with the problem solved. The only drawback is that they don’t allow small poodles in there.
How would you spend a perfect Sunday afternoon? Walking up Chapel Hill, gazing at the fantastic view of Lewes from the golf course, then walking onto Glynde. Tea there, and a train home.
What did you have for breakfast? Organic fruit, nut and seeds cereal. And a mug of Twinings English Breakfast tea. Milk no sugar.
Recommend a novel. Susan Hill is an all-round author who is not snobby about writing crime fiction. The Various Haunts of Men is a great page-turner. I wish I'd written it.
And a film? Antonioni’s Blow Up with David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave. About a photographer who discovers a murder as he blows up a photograph in his dark room. It captures the mood of the sixties and I've never been able to be in a park and hear the wind in the trees without thinking of it. Photography is another of my passions. I collect images and use them in my writing. My next book is about a murder that takes place on the Thames near Hammersmith. I took pictures of rusting chains and green slime on the walled river-bank. These are both for research and, believing in my own fiction, they are crime-scene photos too…
And a restaurant? I used to like the Long Room, before it closed. I go to Ask a lot. But Chaula is opening a restaurant. I live off her takeaways, so I can recommend it in advance, because I know it’ll be good.