Patrick dropped the phone back in his jacket pocket, stood up and headed for his car. There were only two things he knew for certain at that moment. One, he needed to see Suzanne.

Secondly, that he would take Eileen’s secret with him to the grave, if he possibly could.

He was never, ever, going to tell anybody.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

We have a few people to give special thanks to: principally Dr Paul Monks, Simon Alcock, Kate Blumgart and Nik Waites, for generous and expert research assistance (any procedural inaccuracies are our own!).

Hearty thanks to Liz Wilkins for her excellent early feedback, and to our agent Sam Copeland.

Thank you particularly to our commissioning editor at Thomas & Mercer, Emilie Marneur, for her absolute faith in and support for this novel, and to the rest of the T&M team, especially Sana Chebaro and Nadia Ramoul.

To the amazingly supportive and friendly crime writing community both on and off Twitter – so many people who have become good friends. We apologise if we’ve left anyone out, but we’d like to thank Peter James, Mel Sherratt, Ali Knight, Keith Walters, Susi Holliday, Rachel Abbott, Luca Veste, Elizabeth Haynes, Eva Dolan, Anya Lipska and everyone else who gathers outside the Old Swan in Harrogate every year.

Mark would also like to express special gratitude, and love, to Sara Edwards, not only for giving honest feedback about this novel but for making my half of this whole writing lark possible.

Finally, we would like to give a big, fat ‘like’ to our fantastically enthusiastic and helpful group of readers on Facebook.com/vossandedwards, some of whom have their names in this book, including Cathy Hudson and Daniel Hamlet, who won competitions on the page. Pete Aves provided the name of Jerome’s unfortunate staffie.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Photo © 2014 Mark Earthy

Louise Voss and Mark Edwards are the co-authors of Killing Cupid, Catch Your Death, All Fall Down and Forward Slash. They have also written eight solo novels between them, details of which can be found on their website www.vossandedwards.com. Dubbed ‘internet publishing sensations’ after being the first UK self-published authors to reach the #1 and #2 spots simultaneously on Amazon.co.uk back in 2011, they have had a wildly varied and interesting publishing career.

Mark lives in Wolverhampton with his wife and young family, while Louise lives in Surrey with her daughter. They love talking to readers on Twitter, @mredwards and @louisevoss1, and run a very lively Facebook page at facebook.com/vossandedwards, where they chat, run competitions and offer prizes. Many of their character names have been suggested by competition winners—most notably, a dog called Rihanna . . .