IT WOULD BE too much of a cliche to expect James Herbert, millionaire author of horror fiction, to live in a sinister house infested with your worst nightmares.

But to discover that his attractive Sussex home is dazzlingly white, both inside and out, is just as unnerving.

"I like journalists coming here just so that they can see it's not all dark and macabre," he says, greeting me in his large, airy, tidy study overlooking green, calm countryside. "They can see I'm just an ordinary guy."

But when you read his books you realise James Herbert has the sort of imagination that would cause most of us to doubt our sanity. Demons, ghouls, man-eating vermin - his mind seems to run riot with the sort of stuff psychiatrists would love to hear about.

For James, however, it's been a blessing, if not a gift from above. His books, which include The Rats, The Fog and Haunted, have sold more than 48 million copies world-wide in 33 languages.

Four of them were turned into films. But whatever the effect they have on his readers and audiences, they certainly don't keep him awake at night.

Of late, however, he has felt spooked by his own words. His latest novel, Others, (Macmillan, £16.99) has a specific basis to it guaranteed to chill any reader to the bone.

The story is about a private investigator, who happens to be badly crippled and disfigured, on the case of a missing baby. The birth and supposed death of this child appear to have been covered up.

But while on his search, the PI makes a discovery that makes his own disfigurement seem mild.

The idea for this novel has haunted him ever since he was told a disturbing story by a hospital worker who'd stumbled across a ward in a London hospital filled with deformed babies and children. The tragedy was not that they had been born this way, says James, but that they'd been hiding away.

"These babies were taken away from their mothers at birth either because their mothers didn't want them or the doctors took them away and said the babies had died. I have evidence that the babies live on."

Although he found plenty of medical case histories, he cannot prove that these children were being kept out of sight. However, he is keen to "raise the debate".

The story is gripping enough without the added dimension of the supernatural, so why put it in? "Because I'm a horror writer and that's what people expect from me," he points out.

"But the good thing about the genre is that I can write about any subject and can discuss it, debate it and speculate. I'm not saying these things have happened, I only say they could."

Does he believe in the supernatural?

"I have my opinions, but I think there's too much going on in the human mind to put it down to talking to spirits," he says, evasively. "Of course, being brought up a Catholic I have interest in the ideas of Heaven and Hell and I like the theme of redemption."

"This comes up in Others, but I'm only speculating."

More important to him is making the stories believable. This one is set in Brighton, with easily recognisable landmarks such as the Theatre Royal, the Old Ship Hotel and Brown's restaurant. James also went to the lengths of qualifying as a private investigator before setting out to write the novel.

Born in the East End, where his parents ran a fruit and veg stall, his first great love was art. While studying at the Hornsey College of Art, he took up rock music and played in a band until a better band did a gig at their college.

"They made us look silly," he said. "They weren't famous or anything, but they were called The Rolling Stones."

So he stuck with drawing and became the artistic director of an advertising company. It wasn't until he was 28 and was already comfortably off that he tried his hand at writing.

"Horror came pouring out," he says. "I didn't choose to write it, but it must have been welling up inside me."

Much of the influence he puts down to living in a creepy house as a child and being left on his own while his parents worked or socialised.

"I picked up all these vibes and used to scare myself," he remembers.

There is another side to him, however, that of being husband to Eileen, who types up all his longhand manuscripts and sort out the tax. And father to his three daughters, Kerry, 29, Emma, 26 and Casey 15.

Despite his international success, James isn't confident as a writer. "I still think I can't write, that I've got to get better. It causes a wry chuckle when people say it reads smoothly. I have to work hard at it."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.