Because I’m busy tweaking things, and filling gaps, and this sort of things in TW2*, yesterday I up and asked my mother’s physiotherapist what the best entry point would be for a stab wound in the back.

“I want it to quickly give the victim breathing trouble,” I explained – and, having spent half the morning poring over medical journals, even spouted that I probably wanted a bad case of tension pneumothorax…

I suppose the poor man can’t be blamed for looking at me in a funny way, and I was suddenly reminded of that Murder, She Wrote episode in which Mrs Fletcher ends up as a suspect because she’s been asking… bizarre questions.

“Don’t be alarmed,” I hastened to add. “It’s just that I write murder mysteries…”

He was a little relieved. “Oh. Oh, yes. Your mother told me something like that.” And he proceeded to mime a good entry point, using my mother as a dummy… It’s surprisingly difficult to do truly lethal damage to the lungs by stabbing someone in the back, you know? But it can be done – and now I have a good idea of how to do it…

In the end the PT took his leave with some joke about ending up as a witness for the prosecution if I ever kill someone. And I’m rather sure he doesn’t believe I will – but I’m just as sure that now he thinks I’m hopelessly weird…

Ah well.

Life as a mystery writer, right?

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* That is, the second book of the Tom Walsingham Mysteries. The first book, The Road to Murder, is to be found here.