Walk With Horton: Chidham Creek — What Could Possibly Happen Here?

This is Chidham Creek, a peaceful, almost secluded tidal inlet in the beautiful reaches of Chichester Harbour, on the south coast of England.

Across the narrow channel is the ancient village of Bosham, a picturesque historic village with a fascinating connection to King Canute.

But it was this quieter side of the creek that caught my imagination as a setting for one of my DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries.

A place that changes with the tide

Chidham Creek is the kind of place that can appear completely different depending on when you visit.

The creek is home to wading birds and seabirds, while the tide constantly changes the landscape. When the water comes in, parts of the shoreline and footpath can disappear beneath it.

And when the tide recedes, the mudflats reveal all sorts of interesting and sometimes unexpected things.

That changing landscape caught my attention.

Standing here, looking across the peaceful creek towards Bosham, I began to wonder:

What could possibly happen here?

For a crime writer, that's often where a story begins. Not necessarily with a body. Sometimes it's simply a place that makes you start asking questions.

Who comes here?

Why are they here?

What might they have seen?

And what might the tide reveal?

From a peaceful creek to a murder mystery

Those questions eventually became part of The Chidham Creek Murders, one of my DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries.

The real Chidham Creek provides the setting, but as always with fiction, the story takes that real landscape and gives it another life.

That's one of the things I enjoy most about writing crime fiction in places I know.

I don't have to invent the landscape. The creek is already there. So are the tides, the mudflats, the birds, the boats, the weather and the changing light. All I have to do is look at them through the eyes of a crime writer and ask:

What if?

The real locations behind DI Andy Horton

That's what Walk With Horton is about.

I'm taking you to some of the real coastal locations that have inspired or featured in my DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries — places around Portsmouth, Hayling Island, Langstone Harbour, Chichester Harbour and the wider Solent. 

Chidham Creek is particularly atmospheric because of its isolation and its relationship with the tide.

It's peaceful.

It's beautiful.

And, at first glance, there seems to be nothing sinister about it at all.

But that's precisely what makes it interesting to a crime writer.

Because when you're writing crime fiction, you never quite see a peaceful place in the same way again.

And here at Chidham Creek, I found myself wondering...

What could possibly happen here?

Well, quite a lot, as DI Andy Horton discovers in The Chidham Creek Murders.