Legalising mercy killing could pressure the elderly into dying early, claims the writer PD James I think murder has to remain the unique crime. And many old people would feel that they ought to end their life perhaps to benefit their children, if the practice were to become commonplace and other elderly people were doing it. The novelist, whose latest book Death Comes To Pemberley is a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, said she was not afraid of death but of the pain and indignity that might come with it. Asked by Nicci French, the fellow crime writer, whether she was scared of death, she replied: "No." "I am not afraid of death but I do fear the process of dying if it means prolonged pain, indignity and lack of independence," added James, a mother-of-two, who was widowed in 1964. I make a strong distinction between death and dying. At over 90, I fear prolonged pain. She admitted that later in life she had lost her curves and become more "like the Queen" in her appearance. A reader asked whether she had based a "buxom grandmother" in her book a Taste for Death on herself. "Now that I am a great grandmother, I am less buxom - or buxom in the wrong places," she said. This seems inseparable from old age. I am like the Queen - the same shape all the way down. James said that detective stories did "affirm the sanctity of each individual life and the possibility of human justice." She said that there was a period when Dalgliesh, a poet as well as a detective, may have had verses penned for him by WH Auden. Is it really true, as I have read somewhere, that your first editor at Faber said he would try and get WH Auden to write a few poems for Dalgliesh for you to slip into your novels? she was asked Yes, though whether Auden would have done it is another matter. "It was Charles Monteith who said: "We'll get Wystan to write some poetry for Dalgliesh." Wouldn't that have been fantastic - but he died before he got the chance. Might Monteith have persuaded him? He might, because Auden loved detective stories. In the Netherlands, doctors are allowed to assist death if the patient asks for it and their condition being "unbearable and hopeless." In 2010, more than 4,000 lives were ended this way. But the legalising of the practice has led to claims that patients feel pressured into ending their lives to save their relatives and the state the time and expense of looking after them. Mercy killings are the subject of major debate in this country but remain illegal. But the legalising of the practice has led to claims that patients feel pressured into ending their lives to save their relatives and the state the time and expense of looking after them