Miles Kington: The holiday of the jackal (it's a one-way ticket)

'You send people abroad at very low cost and then send a team of burglars round to ransack their home'

I have a novel for you today. A complete novel. And not just a complete novel – it's also an interactive novel! Which means that, at various points in the story, you will have the chance to choose an option that will send the novel forward on to its next stage.

You'll get the hang of it soon enough.

As the hero of the novel, your name is Sebastian Purdy, and life is pretty good for you because you have just been named one of the 500 richest men in Britain by the wealth section of 'The Sunday Times'. But will it last?

The only way to find out is to get cracking with the novel, which is called 'While You Were Away'...

Yes, you have grown rich on the proceeds of your internet company, Bagpax.com, which arranges holidays for people at the last moment. What happens is that you take people's details, you send them abroad at very low cost and then – because you know your clients are away on holiday – you send a team of burglars round to ransack their home.

It's not very ethical, you are the first to agree, but hey, lighten up! It's cutting edge dotcommery! It's vacations with irony! It's the sort of thing that, if it happened to you, you'd laugh off and bounce back from.

And then one day you come home and you open the door and, as you go in, you suddenly realise that:

a) Your house has been done over by your own burglars.

b) That blue wallpaper is absolutely ghastly with the red Persian carpet.

c) Your wife is on the sofa, deep in an embrace with your chief burglar.

d) The phone is ringing.

Yes, the telephone is ringing, which is odd because you carry five mobile phones around with you, as you would have to if you were one of the 500 richest men (and women) in Britain – so who would actually still be trying to ring you on a landline?

There's only one way to find out, and that's to answer the phone, which you do, and you find that it's your second-in-command at Bagpax.com, who is ringing to inform you of a crisis. Apparently, the crack team of burglars that so expertly ransacks your customers' houses for you has insisted on being given a month's holiday.

"They say they never get away at the nicest time of year," says your second-in-command, whose name is Dmitri. "They have to work their hardest doing their robberies during the peak holiday period. Then they have to take a break in November. They're fed up. They want to have a proper summer holiday this year."

"Well, tell them they can't have it!" you snap.

"For God's sake, Sebastian," cries Dmitri, "this is urgent! You must come back to the office at once!"

You put the phone down and wonder, not for the first time, why someone who is otherwise so English has got such a Russian name as Dmitri. You did actually ask him once why he was called Dmitri, and he said:

a) "Oh, for heaven's sake – Boris Johnson is called Boris and no one thinks it odd!"

b) "It is the Esperanto word for 'bouncing baby'."

c) "It was all we could afford."

d) "My parents were very fond of Prokofiev's music."

You were puzzled by the explanation about Prokofiev, as he wasn't called Dmitri at all, but Sergei. However, you sensed that Dmitri didn't want to talk about it, so you dropped the subject...

Meanwhile, you have to get back to the office quickly to clear up this crazy burglar situation, but first you need to change your shirt and you bound up the stairs to your bedroom, where, to your utter amazement, you find Dmitri in bed with your wife. When you get your senses back again, you shout...

a) "Dmitri! I thought you were in the office! If you're not, who on earth is looking after the burglar crisis!"

b) "Ah! So that's why you rang me on the landline!"

c) "Incidentally, were your parents by any chance getting Prokofiev's name mixed up with Shostakovitch, who was called Dmitri?'

d) "PUT THAT GUN AWAY YOU DAMNED FOOL!"

Yes, I am afraid that Dmitri, otherwise unadorned, has got a gun in his hand. Also, your wife is encouraging him to shoot you. Oh, and one other thing. We've run out of space, so I'm afraid you're on your own now. Good luck!