Tending the plot

On Wednesday morning the plot of my most recent, still-in-progress novel revealed itself to me and although much  of what I wrote on Thinking Ten, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week have been attempts to develop a single scene, much of it will doubtless be discarded.
 
Because, I’ve realised, now I know how the second death came about I need to knot the cords of coincidence which connect this second murder with the first.  A staggered sort of sheepshank, a clove and two half hitches, any of which, provided they are sufficiently subtle, will convince the reader of his cleverness in solving all before the end
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First there is the wife, the mother of the victim’s son:  having made her bed she’s lain in it for seventeen years, but sees her chance for happiness slipping inexorably away.

There’s his brother.  Guilty of a number of things – manipulation and adultery – and holder of a secret he never should have been told.

Less likely, there’s his son, at seventeen like any son, he needs to free himself, and the recent jeering accusation of his peers that he might have inherited his father’s homosexuality makes adolescent shame a good enough reason.

There’s an unseen, unknown, presumed lover, heard arguing with him the night he disappeared, the same night that an adulterous DI had an assignation with his wife.  Was this DI lying when he said he’d only met to end the affair?

There’s a fellow-victim, who shared the first ordeal and is being encouraged to tell all, for the sake of fame and fortune – was murder thought the ideal response to a refusal to cooperate?

And this victim's uncle has perhaps the most to lose should the deemed-essential-at-the-time deception come to light.

The biggest problem of all, of course, is that it is me who has to solve it all before revealing it to the waiting-to-be-entertained reader.