I’ve written the perfect book

I met a Canadian couple for lunch in Edinburgh. They were from Vancouver – he a judge, she an opera singer – and had won me at a charity auction. I do this several times a year. It’s a painless way of helping good causes. Of course it’s a very one-sided blind date: they know more about me than I do about them, at least to start with. But the conversation always flows easily and I’ve met some fascinating characters. After the lunch, a drink at Inspector Rebus’s favourite watering hole, the Oxford Bar, was part of the deal. It too has character to spare. Speaking of which, I also sometimes offer charities the prize of becoming a character in a forthcoming book. One winner turned out to be a debenture holder at Anfield and hosted me at a Liverpool-Spurs match. This was pre-Covid but the memory lingers, as does that of this season’s final day and the drama as we finished fourth, above our deadly rivals Arsenal. Roll on next season. It’ll doubtless be a rollercoaster. It’s never easy being a Spurs fan.

My next novel is pretty much done and dusted but not yet published in any form. When I started in this game around 1985 I would feed coins into the photocopier in the Edinburgh University library so I’d have a copy to send to my publishers, once I’d bought an envelope and queued at the post office, keeping fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be lost in transit. These days I press a button on my laptop and my publisher reads the book on a screen before emailing me his feedback and suggestions. The new book has satisfied his requirements so off it goes for proofreading. Meantime I’m left in a fairly pleasant limbo. So few people have read it (wife, agent, editor) that I can pretend I’ve written the perfect book.