A
Place of Execution. It's a taut psychological suspense thriller,
the like of which you won't have read in a long while. It opens
in the winter of 1963: two children have disappeared off the streets
of Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady
have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing:
thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire
hamlet of Scardale, a small-inward-looking community which has little
contact with the outside world. For the young George Bennett, a
newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most difficult
and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with
more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the anonymity
of the inner city - and an outcome which reverberates down the years.
Val McDermid talks to us about her writing
and explains how she came to write A Place of Execution.
Kate
Brannigan is well known as a detective, but she is only one string
in your bow. What sparks off the ideas for your other books and
do you approach them in a very different way from the Kate Brannigan
novels?
'All
my books have more or less the same sort of genesis. Something
intrigues me - a detail in a news story, an item on the radio,
a throwaway line in a conversation. I go away and put the writer's
secret weapon into action. The secret weapon? The two magic
words 'What if?' I play with the idea for a while, grabbing
more information about the subject as and when I can, and gradually
a story starts to emerge. Around this point, I usually know
almost instinctively whether it's a Brannigan, a Tony Hill/Carol
Jordan or something quite different. That's dictated mostly
by the kind of story it is. For example, Brannigan just wouldn't
and couldn't investigate a serial killer. Once I know who the
central character is, I can start to plan in more detail. Obviously,
a series novel takes less time in the planning phase because
I already have a nexus of off-the-shelf characters, but it has
other challenges, like how I move those characters' lives forward.
With stand-alone novels like A Place of Execution, I have to
start right from square one, getting to know everybody from
scratch.'
All
three of your major thrillers have been structured completely
differently. Do you have an idea for a story and develop the structure
of the book from that, or do you think about the type of novel
you`d like to write next? Do you deliberately set yourself new
challenges?
'I
didn't deliberately set out to write books that were structurally
different from each other. The shape of the books and the way
the stories unfold was largely dictated by the stories themselves.
The more I thought about what I was trying to tell, the more
obvious it seemed that there was one narrative shape that would
work best, and so they developed along those lines, almost organically.
I do like to try different kinds of book, partly to keep myself
interested and partly to push myself harder as a writer. I want
each book I write to be better in some way than the last, and
that is a challenge that gets tougher every time! I thought
it would get easier the more I did it, but I was wrong. When
you're starting out, you don't know much about craft and technique,
so you can make great leaps and bounds forward quite easily.
But the more technical skill you acquire, the harder it is to
make that next tiny step up to the next level.'
In
your writing you also move from the first person (Brannigan) to
third person (thrillers) narrative. Does this offer you more freedom
of expression, or do you feel that 1st/3rd person narratives suit
particular types of writing?
'Each
style has its advantages and disadvantages. With 1st person,
you have a much closer and more intimate relationship with the
reader. But you're restricted in what you can show because nothing
can happen that the narrator isn't witness or party to. So,
for example, in a Brannigan novel, there's no possibility of
revealing the inner life of the criminal. In other novels, particularly
those that involve an ongoing police investigation, it's important
to be able to show various strands unravelling at the same time,
so it becomes necessary to open up the point of view to embrace
more than one character. But I have to work harder at building
a relationship between the protagonist and the reader because
I don't have the benefit of that revelatory direct voice.'
How did you begin to develop the story behind A Place of Execution
and what was the inspiration?
'The
seed was sown at a library event I did with true crime writer
Douglas Wynn. He talked about a fascinating case from the mid-1980s
where a man called Ronald Barton was jailed for life for the
murder of his step-daughter Keighley even though no body had
been found at the time of the trial. There were various intriguing
elements about the case, and it set the wheels turning in my
head. I started to research the legal history of 'no body' cases,
and gradually a story began to take shape in my head. Of course,
the story I ended up with bears almost no relationship to that
first inspiration, but that's what got me thinking. I had to
set it in the early 1960s because I wanted there to be the implicit
threat that a convicted killer could be hanged, hence the title
of the book, which comes from the wording of the English legal
system's death sentence.'
It
is an incredibly atmospheric book, set amidst the isolation of
the Peak District. Did you spend time there researching the book?
Is it an area of the country that has a special significance for
you?
'I
lived in Buxton in the heart of the Peak District for twelve
years, and I did - and still do - a lot of walking around there.
I love the White Peak, which has amazing beauty in all seasons
and which seems possessed of an almost unearthly quality of
light. There is something utterly magical about a limestone
landscape. As W.H. Auden says in his poem, In Praise of Limestone:
'...Dear, I know nothing of Either, but when I try to imagine
faultless love Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.'
'Although Scardale itself does not exist, the features of the
village and its surroundings do all occur in the White Peak
area, and it is an incredibly atmospheric place to spend time.
I didn`t specifically research the area for the book, though
I did have dozens of photographs stuck around my desk while
I was writing the book, just to remind myself of what I should
be seeing in my mind's eye.'
With such a wild moorland setting and the emphatic isolation of
Scardale, the book puts you in mind of other wild moorland books
- Wuthering Heights for example. (Is it a coincidence that she's
called Catherine Heathcote - OK not Heathcliff!). Do other books
influence your writing and, if so, what other types of writing
attract you?
The
coincidence of the names hadn`t even occurred to me! It's probably
easier for readers to spot influences in my work than it is
for me to realise their existence. I don't consciously draw
on other writers for inspiration, but clearly what I read will
rub off in some way. I do read a lot of crime fiction, and my
contemporary heroes include Reginald Hill, Ian Rankin, Ruth
Rendell and James Lee Burke. Interestingly, all of those writers
have a very strong sense of place in their work, and I suspect
that's partly what draws me to it. But I also read general fiction.
What I look for in a book is interesting character development,
a well-told story and an atmospheric setting. Like a three-legged
stool, I think a great novel needs all of those to be properly
balanced.'
The
Moors murders, of course, have stayed firmly in the minds of the
British public. As an ex-journalist, and author of A Suitable
Job for a Woman, have you ever been tempted to pursue writing
'true crime' books as well as crime fiction?
'The
problem with real life is that it's messy and untidy and the
dramatic climaxes never work themselves out neatly enough to
be entirely satisfying. The thing that struck me most when I
was writing A Suitable Job For A Woman was how often the private
eyes I interviewed never knew the end of the story. They did
their bit, handed over the information, but they seldom had
that sense of closure that one can achieve with fiction. Call
me a control freak, but I like to be in charge of what happens
when I'm writing! 'As to the Moors Murders -- I am very aware
of the sensitivities around that case, because as a journalist
working out of Manchester, I was involved in elements of the
story many times and interviewed several of those directly concerned,
including families of the victims, the mother of Ian Brady and
a former lover of Myra Hindley. While I knew I couldn't possibly
write about a missing child near Manchester in 1963 without
reference to the real missing children, I was very careful not
to use the real-life material in an exploitative way. I sincerely
hope that nothing I have written will cause pain to any of those
touched by the Moors Murders.'
To
what extent does (or must) true crime influence both crime fiction
writers and the assumptions that readers will bring to their books?
'I
think it varies from writer to writer. My own interest in true
crime tends to be in the psychological end of the spectrum,
and I've read most of the autobiographical work of the retired
FBI profilers as well as some forensic psychology texts. The
circumstances of real cases have sometimes been starting points
for my plots, but my fictions diverge from the reality pretty
early on. But because of the extensive and detailed coverage
of high profile crimes in the press and on TV and radio, the
readers are now far more sophisticated in their knowledge both
of the criminal mind and in the process of catching criminals,
so writers have more of a challenge to get it right! For example,
the other night I watched a news bulletin that detailed the
process of the Jill Dando murder inquiry, right down to explaining
exactly how the murder squad was broken down into teams, each
of which had a particular area of investigation. Stuff like
that makes it harder for us novelists to get away with the notion
of the lone chief inspector with her/his sidekick solving everything
two-handed!'
Can
you tell us a little more about Catherine Heathcote, the narrator.
Does she possess your own journalistic nose or is she a very different
character altogether?
'She
is a very different character from me. She's much more of a
loner, probably both colder and tougher than I ever was as a
journalist. But I suppose we do both share that nose for the
truth, that driving desire to get to the heart of a story and
then to tell it in the clearest way possible. She also has the
conviction that she will never let anything stand between her
and telling a great story. But what happens to her in the course
of this book will change her too, forcing her to see herself
and her life in a different light.'
Particularly
with A Place of Execution but also generally as a crime fiction
novelist - do you get a great sense of excitement and anticipation
once you've finished a novel - knowing you've got a twisting plot
and waiting to see whether your friends and readers will crack
it?
'What I mostly feel is a sense of failure -- I haven`t managed
to write the perfect book I'd dreamed of at the outset! I generally
feel apprehensive about the reactions of readers. Until the
book actually comes out, the only people who have read it have
a vested interest in its success -- agent, editor, lover, sales
team, booksellers -- and they want it to be a great read, so
they are probably in some ways more forgiving than the general
reader. So until the verdicts of the readers start to come in,
I'm always very twitchy!'
Should
detective fiction be crack-able?
'One
should play fair with the reader, and give them the opportunity
to figure it out for themselves. But in my experience, most
crime fiction readers aren't just in it for the puzzle - they`re
interested in the unfolding of the story. The more mysteries
you read, of course, the more likely you are to guess what the
ending will be, but if the book is well enough written, that
isn't always a problem. However, I do like to think that I usually
manage to provide a twist in the tail that will give my readers
that gasp of shock or surprise at the end.'
And
a final question. As a writer of psychological thrillers, can
you tell us whether it`s possible for authors to scare themselves
in the process of writing a book? And has it happened to you?
'I
don't scare myself, probably because I know I made it all up!
Also, when you're writing, you're concentrating on technical
stuff - does this sentence work? Is that the right adjective?
Does this paragraph flow? Can I see this scene in my mind's
eye? -- and that does put a certain distance between you and
the effect. But if I do my job properly, the reader is immersed
in the world I've created, and it feels real, so it is much
scarier for them. It's not my books that give me nightmares
- it's other people's!'
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2000. |
