This was further encouraged by the continuing success of Stephen Mallatratt's adaptation of The Woman in Black[2] (itself a heavy source of inspiration for Haunting Julia[3]).

The following year he wrote Snake in the Grass and it went one step further, with one of the characters a victim of sexual abuse as a child, although this is never explicitly stated in the play, only implied.

[5] The entire play takes place in the garden of the Chesters' family home, now neglected and run-down.

This was modelled on the idea of "a thriller that starts in sunlight in a garden, and slowly the darkness comes in as the sun sets.

These claims are backed up by a letter from their father expressing his fears, and, knowing the will was changed in Annabel's favour, Alice demands £100,000 in compensation.

She concedes to Annabel that she removed "Just one or two lights" and gave her father "just a little push" and increased the dose of medicine "just three or four times" – and when she reveals she was treated as a slave her whole life after Annabel left, the motive is clear: no life or friends of her own allowed, and just the odd chance to do courses in, somewhat obscurely, electrics and plumbing.

In scene two, Annabel, has decided that they can afford to give Alice £5,000 and no more, seemingly indifferent to the alternative that the police will exhume the body, find the traces of medicine and send Miriam to jail.

Annabel has a seizure at the sight of it – after her marriage to her violent husband collapsed, and her business with it, she drank herself to a heart attack.

Alice scorns this too, and, before leaving to go to the police, stops to tell Miriam has one hell of a sister ... but before she can finish, she collapses.

Miriam says she drugged the wine (her own glass having come from a different bottle in the kitchen), and a horrified Annabel watches her push Alice's body through the trapdoor and down the well.

Miriam then forces a now hugely stressed Annabel to tell her own "ghost story" of her marriage, insisting she needs to know now.

So Annabel talks of how they met at a sales conference; how they saw films together, her liking romantic comedies, him liking violent blockbusters; how they started sleeping together and married to formalise the arrangement; how one day he snapped over something trivial and hit her; how sweet he was when he apologised afterwards; how distant he grew the rest of the time; how she ended up provoking him to get his attention this way.

The father voice was just a tape recorder, the tennis balls came from a machine, the well was filled in years ago, and the two show every sign that they are in fact a lesbian couple.

Then there is a flash of light from the house (Miriam's training in plumbing and electrics put to use), and she says "Whoops" and "Goodbye Lewis".

[4] The play had its American Premiere in 2005 at The Black River Playhouse, Chester, New Jersey, directed by Michael T. Mooney.

But she is way past childhood now ... the younger daughter who had to remain at home to tend a monstrous father.

In this role, Blake shows us what she can be when her bubbliness is popped, when her impishness turns dangerous; and when her childlike innocence has withered in the bud.".

In spite of the praise for Susie Blake, the Financial Times review felt the twists were familiar when they came, and the characters' inflexions becoming tedious.