Get more stories like this delivered to your inbox every week by signing up to the Welwyn Hatfield Times In Brief newsletter. Other work includes projections for Adele, Rihanna, Paris Fashion Week, Robbie Williams, Pet Shop Boys, The Sessions, The Band, Olympic and Paralympic 2012 closing ceremonies, ‘Concert for Diana’ at Wembley Stadium, George Michael, the Rolling Stones, Genesis, Darren Hayes, Elton John, U2, Muse, and Nitin Sawhney.

Film includes Cotton Mary, The Tulles Hill Suitcase, These Foolish Things, Another Mother’s Son, Kat and the Band and Cleansing Hour. Theatre includes, at The Bridge, A Christmas Carol, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Two Ladies, Alys, Always and Young Marx. At Chichester The Country Wife, Canvas, and Wallenstein. For the RSC at Stratford and in the West End: Don Quixote, The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, The Hypocrite, The Rover, and Oppenheimer. At the National Theatre: Saint George and The Dragon, A Small Family Business, Great Britain (also West End), Timon of Athens, One Man, Two Guvnors (also West End, Broadway and international tour; Tony Award nominee and winner of Drama Desk Award for Best Score), Travelling Light, England People Very Nice, The Man of Mode, The Alchemist and Southwark Fair. Also work for Leicester Curve, Sheffield Crucible, Birmingham Rep, the New Vic, Stoke, the Mercury Colchester, Birmingham Stage, West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Watermill Newbury, Royal & Derngate Northampton, and for Changeling Theatre. In London: Bartholomew Fair, Broken Glass for the Tricycle (also West End). Cast: Joanne Froggatt, Robert Glenister, Danny Ashok, Maddie Cutter, Joanna David, Leah Gayer, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Simon Manyonda, Jeff Rawle, Vineeta Rishi, Sue Wallace, Sam WoolfBut no, it’s Harriet Lane, and she has created something that is entirely her own. She writes with both elegance and clarity, she balances suspense with acute observation, and she understands her characters, their relationships, the worlds they move in absolutely perfectly. So, I saw you at Alys Kyte’s memorial service,” she says, as if the memory has only just occurred to her. “You’re a friend of the family’s, are you?” A compelling fiction debut about a family tragedy. Patricia Highsmith would be proud. Mysterious and suspenseful.”

Radio includes War and Peace, The Sea, The Sea, Mr Betjeman Regrets and Home Front in which she was an ongoing character. She has also recorded numerous audiobooks. Theatre includes My Name Is Lucy Barton (also on Broadway), Alys Always, Talking Heads and A Christmas Carol at The Bridge; The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre (also West End and Broadway); Everyone’s Talking About Jamie, The Moderate Soprano and Frozen in the West End; 2071, The Nether (also West End), Linda and Girls & Boys at the Royal Court; Miss Saigon in Japan, New York and UK tour; Man and Superman, Ugly Lies the Bone, and The Great Wave at the National Theatre; Desire Under the Elms at Sheffield Crucible; Elegy for Young Lovers at Theatr an der Wien; Oil at the Almeida; Half a Sixpence at Chichester; Mary Poppins on tour; Hamlet and The Master and Margarita at the Barbican; and I Can’t Sing at the Palladium. I found the service terribly moving,” I say, looking up at him, noting the grey planes under his eyes, the looseness around his collar. “And it was lovely to be able to spend some time with Polly.” Some distance behind him, Mary Pym is cosying up to the host of a radio books show, but I can see her attention has now shifted to Laurence, and to me. I lean forward and say, “Let me get that for you,” and then I dab something—possibly some mustard, possibly a bit of lint—off his sleeve. I glance around the table. Everyone seems to be waiting for something—for me to continue, I realise. I have everyone’s absolute attention. It’s an alarming feeling, but not altogether disagreeable.

A group of people comes into the hall behind us in a burst of wind and raindrops. Mary Pym is among them, her hair slightly coarsened by the weather. She starts to prink in the hall mirror, then catches sight of me over her shoulder. A marvellous novel. I absolutely adored it… So subtle, funny, tender and so miraculously observed… Utterly brilliant.”

Set on one wintry and icy night, our MC Frances, is driving through the countryside where she notices a vehicle that appears to have been in an accident. She rushes over to call an ambulance, and ends up spending the last few moments of the single passenger's life (Alys), keeping her company until the emergency services arrive.

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They won’t miss them,” she says. “Take them, for heaven’s sake. Alys would have hated those flowers to just sit there in a dark room, not being looked at. Honestly, it’s fine, no one minds. Take them.”

Good, I’ll have the cappuccino. Croissant?” she adds, passing me a white paper bag. “No, go on, it’s for you.”

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Maybe I’ll take her for a walk later,” I suggest, as I always do, for my own amusement. “She could do with it, I expect. Take her over the common, down to the reservoir?”