Mistakes We Make

Jenny Harper

Sometimes you have to dig deep to discover what you really need.

Marketing events manager Molly Keir doesn’t realise how much she still cares for her ex until she meets him with another woman. Her answer is to seize the chance of a glittering job in London – even though this will mean leaving behind her aging father and pregnant best friend Lexie Gordon.

Adam Blair is in the wrong job. Pressured by his father to join the family law firm, the stress of work helped break his marriage. Now Molly is moving to London, and he knows he needs to move on – but events soon overtake his best intentions.

A year ago, Caitlyn Murray quit her well-paid job to avoid becoming a whistleblower. Now she is stuck at home with her overworked mother and four needy step-siblings. Tempted by the offer of a good wage, she returns to her old firm – where her nightmare comes back to haunt her.

Molly and Adam seem to have gone too far to recover the love they once had, and when Caitlyn finds the courage to speak out, she brings all their worlds tumbling down.

Acknowledgements

Some books are a joy to research, others prove more challenging. I have to confess that Mistakes We Make fell into the latter category – it proved extraordinarily difficult to persuade lawyers and accountants to describe a perfect fraud to me! One lawyer, after an hour of grilling, protested, ‘You’re making me think like a criminal.’ To the various people who did dream up potential scenarios for me, therefore, I am incredibly grateful. They know who they are.

On the plus side, I discovered that lawyers and accountants make excellent interviewees in terms of research – their information tends to emerge immaculately organised, if not in numbered lists with sub-points!

I am most grateful to Bob Brown and Leonard Mair for general information on how law firms operate, and to Donnie McGruther, who directed me to The Law Society of Scotland for information about what happens when possible criminal activity is reported or detected in a law firm. I am indebted to the Society’s Registrar, David Cullen, for outlining this process in detail.

As ever, my heartfelt thanks go to all those who support me and put up with me in my writing. They include my writing buddies Dianne and Jennifer and my long-suffering husband, Robin. I am eternally grateful also for the support of a wider community of writers, bloggers and reviewers – thanks to all of you. Writing would be a more difficult and a lonelier place without you.

And finally, thanks to the wonderful team at Accent Press, in particular Bethan James and my editor, Rebecca Lloyd. And – because I’m so thrilled with it – a special thanks to my cover designer!

Note on Hailesbank and The Heartlands

The small market town of Hailesbank is born of my imagination, as are the surrounding villages of Forgie and Stoneyford and the council housing estate known as Summerfield, which together form The Heartlands. I have placed the area, in my mind, to the east of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh.

The first mention of The Heartlands was made by Agrippus Centorius in AD77, not long after the Romans began their surge north in the hope of conquering this savage land. ‘This is a place of great beauty,’ wrote Agrippus, ‘and its wildness has clutched my heart.’ He makes several mentions thereafter of The Heartlands. There are still signs of Roman occupation in Hailesbank, which has great transport links to the south (and England) and the north, especially to Edinburgh, and its proximity to the sea and the (real) coastal town of Musselburgh made it a great place to settle. The Georgians and Victorians began to develop the small village, its clean air and glorious views, rich farming hinterland and great transport proving highly attractive.

The River Hailes flows through the town. There is a Hailes Castle in East Lothian (it has not yet featured in my novels), but it sits on the Tyne.

Hailesbank has a Town Hall and a high street, from which a number of ancient small lanes, or vennels, run down to the river, which once was the lifeblood of the town.

In my novels, characters populate the shops, cafes and pubs in Hailesbank and the pretty adjoining village of Forgie, with Summerfield inhabitants providing another layer of social interaction.

JH

PART ONE