Writing a novel is a mostly a solitary activity, but the truth is: it couldn’t be done without a whole team of people.
Thank you to everyone at Aitken Alexander and in particular my fabulous agent and friend, Clare Alexander. She took a chance on me more than twenty years ago and I’ll be forever grateful to her. A huge thank you to Lesley Thorne, Lisa Baker and everyone in the foreign rights department, Amy St Johnston, Jazz Adamson, and Cony and Joaquim Fernandes.
A big, big thank you to my editor and fellow author, Phoebe Morgan, for making this book so much better than it once was. You are such an inspiration! I’d also like to thank Charlotte Webb for copy-editing, Claire Ward for design, assistant editor Sophie Churcher and everyone at HarperCollins.
Thanks too must go to Lisa Cutts, the crime novelist and detective constable, who provided me with some expert information and advice about certain aspects of police procedure. I’d also like to thank Dr Susan Shaw, consultant psychiatrist and friend, who read the book in manuscript form and provided some useful feedback.
Here’s to everyone close to me: my parents, all my friends who have walked through the streets of north London and trudged across Hampstead Heath with me over the years and to one in particular: Marcus Field.