Harriet Tyce

And he decides that the one way he can protect himself is to marry her so that she can't be compelled to give evidence against him.

but she falls entirely in love with him.

And I will say that it leads to an ending to a novel that is, with the most compelling of openings, possibly one of the most harrowing endings that I can think of in any book that I've ever read.

It's how the book ends.

It's that entire relationship.

And so it's a battle of good and evil, essentially.

Well, Matt, what did you think of it?

I mean, I would say that the fact that Ida is not repressed, I mean, Ida quite happily goes out and drinks, quite happily goes out and has sex.

She doesn't see any harm in it.

I mean, she is a bit of a caricature in some senses, but yet her drive to save Rose from Pinky is at its core something that is...

Good, you know, in the sense that Graham is in favour.

But what I mean is that I feel that Graham is on her side.

You don't agree.

You think that he's pro-Pinky and you think there's a nihilistic idea to the back of it.

She does do the Ouija rules.

She's sentimental.

There is that very touching passage when they are both eating their ices and they look like two children being told to get out of the way.

I still feel, though, that it's ambiguous.

It's ambiguous.

And I think that that is why I love the book, that it isn't clear what you're meant to think.