Oh dear. This is going to be long! So many people have helped me to write this novel and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had such a fantastic network of support.
Firstly, I want to thank my dear friend Tracey Ann Wood – mainly for always being there, but also for taking so much time out from reading her own scripts to make and send me (by text!) her meticulous early edits to mine.
A very big thank you to Jemima Forrester of David Higham Associates for her considerable help with the plot and structure. My thanks also to Anne Williams of Kate Hornden Literary Agency for her interest and observations on the opening chapters.
A huge thank you to everyone at Head of Zeus for your dedication to finding new authors and for all your hard work in bringing this story to life. A special thank you to my editor Sophie Robinson for believing in it and for inspiring others to believe in it too.
I am truly grateful to my gorgeous sister-in-law Karen Draisey and to my lovely niece Shannon Draisey, who both took time out of their busy lives to give me some detailed and hugely helpful feedback and encouragement. My thanks also to my friend Ian Astbury for his interest in the story and for brainstorming ideas with me, some of which developed into crucial aspects of the plot.
The following friends were a fantastic help in reading early drafts and responding with their thoughts, giving me ideas for improvement as I worked on rewrites: Catherine Scammell, Christine Lawson, Amy Eastham, Penny Lillie, Helen Ellis Astbury, Sharon Organ and Lindsay Jopling. A big kiss goes to Helena Eastham, whose texts of encouragement perked me up more than once when I’d been writing through the night. Huge thanks also to Marcia Lecky for stepping in and being my fresh pair of eyes when I made some changes at the eleventh hour.
Thanks to Becca Stern and Patricia Marquis for their hugely helpful insights into hospitals and nursing and to Shemina and Justin Kirby for answering my questions regarding toxicology. Thanks also to Paul Organ for his valuable advice on police practice and procedure.
Massive thanks to my lovely friend and colleague, Kirsty Craghill of Craghill Tuckers Solicitors in Brighton for reading the book in five hours straight and for the second opinion on the legal aspects of the story. Thanks also to the other fabulous people at Tuckers in London and Brighton who were willing to read and feed back to me: Kelly Thomas, Fiona Dunkley and Cath Diffey. As women and as lawyers, you inspire me! Huge thanks also to my lawyer friends in Oxford, Catherine Scammell and Simon Graham-Harrison, and to Howard Wilson for reading and giving me his thoughts on the final Crown Court scene.
Thanks also to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) for kindly allowing me to reproduce part of the following sentence: ‘The existing evidence suggests that young but otherwise healthy children in the UK do not spontaneously and voluntarily ingest sufficient salt to cause significant hypernatraemia’, which appears in the following article: RCPCH 2009. The Differential Diagnosis of Hypernatraemia in Children, with Particular Reference to Salt Poisoning. An evidence-based guideline. Summary of guidance: Page 5 and Causes of Hypernatraemia: Page 51.
On a practical note, my thanks go to Matthew Pitt of Matthew Pitt Photography in Oxford for his friendly professionalism in taking photos for the cover shot and to Victoria Pitt for the Frizz-Ease – and for putting me at ease (as well as for being an approachable custody sergeant!)
I also want to give my huge and sincere thanks to the following people, without whose help this book would never have been written: Dawn Blaine, Kerry Day, Sue Simmonds, Sue James, Anna Shelton, Tracey Mutch, Tracey Carnegie, Holly Jones, Alex Wilson and Karen Fourie. Thanks also to Tom Guy, Alice Bent, Amy Appleton, Kayleigh Gamblin, and Jenny Eyles, everyone at Core Assets Children’s Services – and to all the other amazing people across the country who have chosen to spend their lives working with our special children and vulnerable adults. I dream of a day when the true value of the work you do is properly recognised in our society.
Finally, my thanks go to my husband, Mark, for listening to me while I talked about this book (a lot), for putting up with all the time I spent in the writing cave over Christmas 2016 – and, most of all, for never bailing out.