Most of my novels begin with a ‘what if…?’ question and The Missing was no different. My initial thought was, ‘What if a child disappeared in the middle of the night?’ My second thought was, ‘What if everyone in that child’s family felt guilty about the disappearance?’ As I was brainstorming the idea I read about Agatha Christie’s fugue to Harrogate and that sparked new ideas – what if Claire was responsible for her son’s disappearance but couldn’t remember what happened? What if she’d suffered a fugue and started a new life with him somewhere and left him behind? I considered lots of different possibilities but the one I kept coming back to was – what if Claire couldn’t accept that someone in her family was responsible for Billy’s disappearance? How would that affect her subconsciously? What if it triggered a psychological disorder? I wanted to write a novel that explored family dynamics, the pressures of motherhood and the lies we tell ourselves and each other. The Missing was the result.

2. Did you include any real-life experiences in the novel?

This is the first psychological thriller I’ve written that doesn’t include any of my real-life experiences but it does explore one of my fears, and a fear a lot of parents have – the loss of a child. There’s something very cathartic about writing through your fear, but it’s also very difficult as you have to put yourself in the main character’s shoes and let yourself feel every emotion she’s feeling. It took me about five months to write the first draft of The Missing and there were at least two months when I felt constantly tense and unsettled. I couldn’t understand why I felt so odd but then I realised it was because I was so immersed in Claire’s feelings that they’d become enmeshed with my own. As soon as Claire came to terms with her feelings in the book it was as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

3. Your main character, Claire, is a very unreliable narrator. Did you find her difficult to write?

She was quite difficult to write as I wanted her to be a strong character who was a bit of a control freak but she had to be likeable too. I needed the reader to identify with her, care about her and feel her confusion each time she suffered a fugue. But I also needed the reader to mistrust her and question whether she had anything to do with Billy’s disappearance.

4. Did you always know how the novel would end? Did elements change during the writing process?