Sarah Lawton

As some of you will already know, I used to edit an online crime-writing magazine called Crime Fiction Fix. The magazine has now ceased publication, but a lot of what we did lives on, including, especially, our video interviews with notable crime fiction authors. The archive of over 40 past videos is available to all PAID SUBSCRIBERS.

This, though, is an entirely new interview with Sarah Lawton, whose A Drowning Tide I reviewed a few weeks ago. It’s a stunning book, and it’s fascinating to hear Sarah talk about how she goes about her writing in the interview here.

Not only that, but Sarah also very generously provided a ‘Back Story’ for an extract from her book. Again, this draws on what Crime Fiction Fix used to offer, in that each video interview was accompanied by a short piece by that author on why they wrote a particular extract as they did - what their thinking was, and how they were seeking to affect the reader. That is what Sarah Lawton has provided below. The extract is drawn partway through A Drowning Tide, and what Sarah has to say about why she wrote it as she did is extremely interesting. Enjoy!

A. Extract from A Drowning Tide:

I’m boiling the kettle again and pondering breakfast – marmite or jam on toast, trying to remember what I had yesterday, if I even ate anything – when there’s a knock at the door. It’s a rather loud knock for barely eight thirty, though I suppose my front room light suggests that I am up and about, even though I am still in my dressing gown and slippers. Maybe it’s my new book. It’s not. It’s two policemen. At least that’s my assumption, there’s a man in uniform and a woman in a suit with a long slim fitting wool coat over the top, both stern-looking.

            We stand staring at each other for a long stomach swooping moment while my mind trips and scatters to the winds of bad memories, of a scene like this played out once before, but I gather myself and my voice is firm when I speak.

            ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

            The young man speaks while the woman watches on. ‘Sorry to bother you so early,’ he says, his accent catching on a nerve. Why do all young people want to sound like they’re from London these days? I recognise this nipper, he’s a look of his mother about him, as local as I am.

            ‘I’m an early riser,’ I interrupt. ‘What do you need?’

            ‘We’re here about your neighbour, Lucas Manning,’ he says, and my innards lurch again. ‘His wife Alison has reported him missing.’

            ‘Missing?’ I parrot back stupidly.

            ‘She hasn’t seen him since Sunday evening.’ This time the woman speaks, a silky Scottish burr, words as smooth as her shiny black hair. She’s a long way from home. Selkie. ‘D’you mind if we come in for a wee minute? It’s cold out here. It won’t take long.’ She takes out a black leather wallet from her pocket and flips it open, showing me her warrant card. There's a braille plaque on it beneath the shiny crest which glints in the morning sun.

            ‘Okay,’ I say, stepping back into the narrow hallway. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess.’ There isn’t a mess but it’s what people say, isn’t it? They follow me through to the kitchen. ‘Kettle’s just boiled; do you want a hot drink?’ The young man – is he a Harding, or was that his mother, I can’t recall – waits for his superior to assent before he also agrees. It is very cold this morning. I make them both tea, use the time to gather my thoughts. Missing?

            They settle themselves around my small kitchen table and I feel slightly embarrassed at its scruffy and scratched surface and scattered collection of notebooks and pots of chewed on pens. The boy takes out his own notepad and I could almost picture him licking the end of a pencil before starting to write. I don’t know why silly things like that pop into my head when I’m nervous.

            ‘Here you go.’ They both take the mugs I offer them and draw them across the table where they’ve sat, cupping them for warmth. A slim band of silver gleams from the woman’s wedding finger. Maybe she married an islander, I can’t think why anyone would move so far from home to end up here otherwise.

            ‘When did you last see Mr Manning, Mrs..?’

            ‘Ms. Ms Merriweather. Or just Merry, if you like.’

            ‘Merry,’ she says with a small smile as my name rolls in her mouth, a flash of teeth showing past unadorned lips. No makeup at all it looks like, which is unusual. I thought I was fairly alone in my eschewing of powders and pastes. ‘Merry, when did you last see your neighbour? How did he seem?’

B. The Back Story, by Sarah Lawton:

This passage opens with an insight into Merry’s character – she can’t remember if she had breakfast the day before, she doesn’t always look after herself, self-care is an afterthought. She doesn’t care about her appearance particularly either, as evidenced when she later mentions ‘eschewing powders and pastes’. Her awkward thought process, saying things ‘people say, don’t they?’ gives us the impression that she feels herself apart from society and its norms in some way. Lonely without admitting it.

When the police show up, she has a flashback to another time police were on her doorstep, giving the first hint of dark secrets in her past, ones that leave her nervous and fumbling. Her visceral reaction to the news her neighbour has gone missing suggests something deeper than a usual neighbourly bond, or that Merry is involved somehow.

She’s an observant character too – recognising family features in the young policeman, the detective’s lack of make up, her wedding ring. It makes her curious – what is her story? Who are his family? Merry is someone who needs answers.