a contemporary novel, and takes place mostly within the m25, is actually a kind of work—up for the tudor who won't lie down. the dead are on every page of that book, nattering away about all sorts of banal topics. and the whole theme of talking to the dead and being available to them, i was actually setting the schedule for my next 15 years of work, but i didn't know it at the time. which brings us very neatly to the mirror and the light, the eagerly anticipated final instalment in your thomas cromwell trilogy. so how is it going? it's going well. it's just suddenly taken a leap forward, and just last week i could email my editor and say, "since i emailed you last week, i have done 12,000 words, and they are good words." 12,000 words is nothing, but you suddenly think, "now, this project, it's pulling away from its moorings, you know?" it really wants to be written. and i think i'm probably entering into the most frenzied but also, in a way, the most pleasurable phase of the writing, where it seems to have taken charge and it's doing it itself. can you envisage a writing life beyond thom