Mm.

Because it's my story.

It's me on the page.

Screenwriting is very collaborative, so even though it starts as just me writing out a script or, you know, a, a pilot show or whatever, by the time it gets made, it has gone through the process of producers, broadcasters, directors, cameramen, the budget men, everything, and it takes a lot of knocks.

You've cut your...

You know, the, the edits I get for screenwriting would be hundreds and hundreds of pages.

When I send in a book, I tend to get one email back saying, "Oh, could we have a bit more of this, a bit more of that?" Do you know?

Yeah.

Tell us about it.

So there's a practice in Japan called jōhatsu, uh, where people voluntarily disappear from their lives, and I happened to read an article about this last year.

I- it's not uncommon.

You know, people do this throughout the world all the time, but in Japan, being that progressive, inventive nation that they are, they've created an entire industry around this.

So when people, whether it be from, you know, shame or overworking or an affair is about to be found out or domestic abuse, anything, want to flee, they go to these companies called night movers, who literally come in, move them in the middle of the night, transform them to a, you know, new town, new identity, new job, everything, and they leave everything behind, and they just disappear.

And when I read about this, I thought, "This is just, it's brilliant.

It's completely unique.

So where do you find that space? Is it very structured, or is it just as the inspiration comes to you, you start writing?

Of course I do.

And fibbed my way into, you know, because I had nothing, I had no IP there.

But I went off and taught about it and then came back with Taken Down as an original idea.

And because it was topical, she jumped in it.

And that could have gone nowhere.

You know, it was very lucky for me to get offered the chance.

A lot of people can write a pilot of a show.

What's it about?

Do you have a notebook full of weird crimes or spins on weird crimes?

Oh, yeah.

A notebook the size of the Bible.

Yes.

I mean, I think there's generally a body.

But I guess this is my 14th novel.

And you do...

That was my indoor voice there.

Do you have a notebook full of weird crimes or spins on weird crimes?

Oh, yeah.

A notebook the size of the Bible.

Yes.

I mean, I think there's generally a body.

But I guess this is my 14th novel.

And you do...

That was my indoor voice there.

Was that a reference to your dad?

It was, yeah.

So my dad died when I was 16.

But he died in a house fire.

So it was a closed coffin.

And I do think it's one of those things that you possibly only kind of realize later in life that how we normally do it with the open coffin.

I know a lot of my partner's English and he finds that quite unusual.

Tell me a little bit about Kathleen, his birth mother.