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It was the American novelist William Faulkner who once said that in writing you must kill all your darlings; it was Mike Munns — another writer but, like me, not half as good as Faulkner — who made a joke out of this quote when he telephoned my flat in Putney early that Tuesday morning.
‘It’s me, Mike. I’ve heard of kill your darlings but this is ridiculous.’
‘Mike. What the hell? It’s not even eight o’clock.’
‘Don, listen, switch on Sky News and then call me at home. John’s only gone and killed Orla. Not to mention both of her pet dogs.’
I don’t watch much television any more than I read much Faulkner but I got out of bed and went into the kitchen, made a pot of tea, switched on the telly, and after a few seconds was reading a rolling strip of news across the bottom of the screen: BESTSELLING NOVELIST JOHN HOUSTON’S WIFE FOUND MURDERED AT THEIR LUXURY APARTMENT IN MONACO.
About ten minutes later the twinkly-eyed Irish news anchor was announcing the bare facts of the story before asking a local reporter positioned outside the distinctive glass fan entranceway to the Tour Odéon, ‘What more can you tell us about this, Riva?’