Given time, maybe I will be able to make her think of the good things, like the holiday when we all stood in a field with the wind in our hair and I reached out a puffy little hand to touch her face. She will remember we were happy and she will know that although I do not have a body any more, I am inside her; I live on in her heart. She is not alone. She was never alone.

It’s dark outside, but a beautiful dark, a dark full of blankness and possibility, and the train thunders on, relentless go the wheels, relentless now, for this is the glory of it, it goes on and on. A ticket inspector bounces from side to side as he makes his way down the carriage, saying in a sing-song voice, ‘All tickets and railcards, please!’ He bumps against the edge of the empty seat next to me but doesn’t pause because he can’t see me. I am neither here nor mirrored in the train window. I have no presence or reflection but to the people who cared for me, I exist, living on in their hearts. I am not alone. I never was.

Acknowledgements

In writing this, my ninth novel, I was – as ever – incredibly grateful to all the people with proper jobs willing to humour a writer’s desire to poke around in their lives. Thanks to: Inspector Andrew Pickles of the British Transport Police, who facilitated the bulk of my research; Chief Superintendents Jeff Boothe and Allan Gregory; Gemma Harris; Roopa Farooki; Sean Enright; Jodie Slater, Mark Johnson and many other staff working for what was then Virgin Trains East Coast, who let me hang around with them day and night, despite their understandable bafflement that anyone should want to write a novel set on Peterborough Railway Station.

I would also like to thank the staff of the Great Northern Hotel who, by the second of my many stays, were already welcoming me like an old friend. For any other writer thinking of setting a book on Peterborough Station, I can recommend Room 132, from which you can see the train platforms, the BTP building and the multi-storey car park: if you open the window, you can listen to the announcements too. It’s not every novel where you can do your primary research while eating an excellent cooked breakfast in bed.

Thanks as well to Mandy Chasney and everyone in the Palmy Ukelele Band for letting me attend rehearsal and sing along. Really, I owe a debt of gratitude to all the inhabitants of Peterborough and I’d like to apologise for the wisecrack about dual carriageways.

Once again, eagle-eyed friends gave me invaluable help at the manuscript stage: Raj Kohli, Jacqui Lofthouse, Brigid Sheppard, Bob Gilbert, Jane Hodges, Nathalie Weatherald. Jill Dawson provided caffeine, cocktails and essential moral support.