Who shot Phil Mitchell? One York writer knows and CHRIS TITLEY tried to wring the truth out of her...

A PISTOL pokes through the foliage. A shot rings out. Phil falls down the stairs like the sack of spuds he strives to emulate, a bullet lodged near his flinty heart. The unknown assailant flees the scene. Cue the drums: Dum. Dum. Dudder-dudder-dudder-dudder.

As EastEnders finished last night, the nation exhaled, put the kettle on and began to argue: who plugged Phil Mitchell?

Was it weaselly Ian Beale, the catering college mutant who asked Phil for a loan but got a slap in the chops instead? Or dirty Dan Sullivan, tricked by Mitchell into signing away his share of the pub? Or slick Steve Owen, who believes there is nothing like a spot of cold blooded murder to set you up for your wedding night?

The question is driving grown men and women to the brink. Mass hysteria cannot be far away.

But one woman remains calm. She is Kate Lock, York journalist and author. And she was quick to reveal why she is so preternaturally serene: "I know who shot Phil."

Soap fans, I did my best. I used every technique not barred by the Geneva Convention, and one or two that are, to force the truth from her.

"So who was it?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that."

Oh, g'wan, I countered. "I'd never work again."

Damn her, she was inscrutable. But then, she has had some practice.

"Family and friends put me under a great deal of pressure to tell what I knew. I didn't."

So no one else knows?

"I have to confess, my husband knows. He's not interested in EastEnders. He said he couldn't be bothered to tell anybody."

I tried a swift change of tack, hoping to throw her off guard.

Does Phil pull through? "I haven't actually been told that," Kate claimed.

You must know! "I get the impression that he will live on to fight another day, but that's not based on anything they told me."

'They' are the EastEnders production and scriptwriting team, with whom Kate worked closely as she wrote her latest book Steve Owen - Still Waters. It is her fourth EastEnders book, following Tiffany and Bianca's Secret Diaries and an EastEnders Who's Who.

Steve Owen - Still Waters was commissioned by BBC Worldwide to cash in on the story-line that has gripped millions. Unlike the secret diaries, it is an entirely new work, with Kate creating her own plot based on the soap characters.

"The climax of this story-line is the jumping-off point for my book," she explained.

"My book is set on Mel and Steve's honeymoon. It continues the story and draws out a lot of Steve's murky past as well."

It has not been an easy book to write. Publishing deadlines meant that she only had five weeks, from start to finish. And that was back in November, when the TV plot was far from settled.

"Story-line changes go on all the time. Even now, I wonder if I've managed to get everything right.

"At the early stages of planning this book, the story-line changed two or three times."

As a result this is a very different book than originally envisaged. "The one I have written is more fun, more vital and much better. But it was quite stressful and hectic at the start.

"I wrote a few pages, then it changed, and a chapter, then it changed again."

She worked with one of the programme's main story-liners. "He'd phone up and say 'Kate, I'm really sorry, but...'"

What were the main changes? "It was all the toing and froing, the whole situation with Phil going to get shot. They kept making changes to how this was going to happen, and one thing and another."

Phil's date with destiny complicated matters further. "John Yorke, the executive producer, wanted to make more of the Phil shooting. And yet my problem was that Mel and Steve came off apparently, and I stress apparently... how can I put this..?"

Kate struggles to find words that won't give the game away.

"...well, you are not sure whether either of them know about the shooting.

"But John Yorke wanted me to keep the shooting uppermost in readers' minds. At the same time I couldn't directly reflect on the incident."

There were other problems. "Some of the cast members involved in this story-line weren't confirmed until very late, like Craig Fairbrass who plays Dan Sullivan, and Sheila Hancock, who plays Barbara Owen.

"So when I was writing about them, I had to be quite ambiguous. By the time the page proofs came back, they had confirmed, so I changed the stories a bit more."

Kate researched the book by reading the scripts and Steve Owen's 'biography'. Like all the characters, information about his life before Albert Square is kept on file at the show's offices in Elstree. Although the plot of her book won't make it on screen, the revelations it contains will be added to Steve's biography.

Disappointingly, the BBC declined to send Kate to Steve and Mel's honeymoon location, Jamaica, so she turned to the Internet for inspiration. "And my husband bought me a Bob Marley reggae CD. I would bop around the study to Buffalo Soldier to get me in the mood to write."

The finished result is a thriller with a compelling story-line. It asks who is the real Steve Owen? And it considers the aftermath of his discovery that Mel had a one-night stand with Phil Mitchell - Steve's potential motive for murder.

What is it about Steve Owen that has made him a hit with viewers? "It's not hard to fall a little in love with him - the character that is, not Martin Kemp, although he's gorgeous," Kate said. "Steve's a sexy, seductive character. He's very good looking, he's very suave and smooth."

But he's a nutter, isn't he? I mean, his girlfriend Saskia may have been unhinged, but most of us wouldn't have brained her with an ashtray, then sent an innocent man to jail for her manslaughter? Would we?

"I don't think he's that much of a nutter," Kate contends. "Saskia would have killed him. He really rushed her. The thing he did wrong was then was forcing Matt to go along with it, bury her body and then let him go to prison for it.

"He's not a maniac. He's a dangerous piece of work, don't get me wrong, and in this book that very much comes through."

On one thing we can all agree: "Mel doesn't know what she's in for."

Steve Owen: Still Waters by Kate Lock is published on Thursday by BBC Worldwide, price £5.99

Updated: 12:10 Friday, March 02, 2001