The family, in order of grudge · Rally Mortis diary

A car combat game lives or dies by the people you are hitting. Faceless rivals are traffic. Rivals with names, faces and opinions about you are a reason to turn round and go back for another go.

Ours are a family. That helps: everyone already has a relative they would quite like to nudge into a canal.

Four pencil portraits of rival heirs with early working labels: widow, twins, the fur and sings sadly — The first page of rivals, pinned up in May. The labels read “widow”, “twins (both)”, “the fur” and “sings. sadly”. Only one of those labels survived intact.

The widow who became a daughter

In the first sketches, Prudence Vane-Holloway was the widow: black veil, wreath, hearse. It worked on paper. Then we wrote the will, and the will needed a line for her, and this is the line that arrived:

To my eldest, Prudence, who has been in mourning since 1958: finally, something to mourn.

A widow mourning her husband is sad. A daughter who has been in mourning for seventeen years, for no clear reason, and who now finally has a funeral to match the wardrobe, is a character. She stopped being the widow that afternoon. She kept the hearse.

Prudence Vane-Holloway in a black veil dabs her eyes with a handkerchief — Prudence at the reading, handkerchief in hand. Grieving professionally.

Dossiers

Every rival gets a card, the way a solicitor might keep notes on a difficult client: a name, a relationship to the deceased and one line. The line has to do all the work. Here are some from chapter one and beyond:

Prudence Vane-Holloway. Eldest daughter. Grieving professionally.
Barnaby & Bartholomew. Nephews. One alibi between them.
Sunny Solace. Stepson. Life coach. Hasn’t met yours.
Mr Ledgerwood. Family accountant. Counts everything twice.
Old Mossgrave. Gardener. Fifty years, one inch.
Contessa Lavinia. Third ex-wife. Kept the title, the fur and the grudge.
Cousin Ferdinand. Cable television. Forty channels, all of them him.

Red-haired twin brothers in tweed share a sofa and a suspicion — The twins at the reading. They share a sofa, a tailor and a suspicion.

Barks

In a race, rivals talk. We call these lines barks, and each rival has a set for every occasion: when they ram you, when you ram them, when they overtake, when they are wrecked. Writing them is the most fun job in the studio and the most dangerous, because a bark you hear twice an hour has to be very good, or very short. Ideally both.

Prudence, on ramming you: I’ll mention this in your eulogy.

Sunny, on being hit: I forgive you. Legally, I don’t.

A distant cousin, overtaking on the wrong side: Passing through! Distantly related!

Four rival heirs line up: a guru, a clerk in a bowler, a gardener and a chef — Four more heirs line up for the start: a guru, a clerk in a bowler, a gardener and a chef.

There are eleven heirs in all, and the will expects them to drop out one at a time. Next: night, rain and the Coast Road, which is where we learnt to love weather.