Wimborne/Tivoli – 19 September Stoke/Regent Theatre – 20 September Coventry/Warwick Arts Centre – 21 September Nottingham/Playhouse – 22 September Warrington/Parr Hall – 23 September Ipswich/Regent – 29 September

Scunthorpe/Baths Hall – 30 September Folkestone/Leas Cliff Hall – 1 October Birmingham/Genting Arena – 2 October Bournemouth/International Centre – 5 October Stevenage/Arts and Leisure Centre – 8 October Aylesbury/Waterside Theatre – 9 October Hayes/Beck Theatre – 10 October

Chatham/Central Theatre – 11 October Northampton/Derngate – 16 October

London/Southbank Centre – 17 October Cambridge/Corn Exchange – 18 October Aberdeen/Music Hall – 24 October

Dorking/Halls – 29 October

Swindon/Wyvern – 30 October

Carmarthen/Lyric Theatre – 31 October

from Origami by Kim Tribbeck

For Elaine Hopwood, the mother
I never met but always loved

Chapter 1

1

My tip for anyone under scrutiny from the police: as soon as you try to hide something, you make it glaringly visible, like the buildings and bridges that are sometimes wrapped in white cloth by artists, making everyone stare and point at them. Pull off the cloth and you’ve got an unremarkable office block or a congested commuter route across water; people walk past with their heads down, oblivious.

Tell the police the truth, immediately and in detail – all your sleazy lies, all your unsavoury personal habits – and no one will pay a scrap of attention. It’s kind of obvious: when you hide, people seek, whereas when you talk about something that matters to you, no one listens. Ever. This is the main way in which human beings are reliable.

Standing before detectives, I decided straight away that I mustn’t appear to be a mystery. For as long as I was one, there was a danger I’d look like one, so when I first went to the police, I held up my secret and waved it around ostentatiously like an ID card in a wallet: ‘Here’s my secret, now let me pass.’

I wouldn’t have minded, except I only had the one. A solitaire. It wasn’t even current – it was the memory of a secret. Nevertheless, it was my most treasured possession and my best friend. (I’ve had human best friends in the past. They’re overrated.) I preferred my secret to my home, my work, my remaining blood relatives. Giving it up was a significant sacrifice.

I don’t regret telling the police the truth. To do anything but reveal all would have been daft. As a real person, I understand this. Only fictional characters in TV crime dramas think, ‘Here come the cops, investigating a series of brutal slayings – I’d better tie myself in elaborate knots to make sure they don’t find out I watched a pirated movie in 1997. Who cares if it hampers their efforts to prevent the garotting-with-piano-wire of yet another apple-cheeked schoolboy? Just nobody mention The English Patient. I know nothing about that. I’ve never seen a burnt English guy in a hospital bed in my entire life, I swear.’