First, thanks to my agents Felicity Blunt and Lucy Morris, who pushed and pushed this idea into the structure it is today, and for all their hard work on foreign, film and TV rights, and the astute way they guide my career. It is a privilege to work with two absolute experts.

Secondly to the team at Michael Joseph, especially Maxine Hitchcock, Rebecca Hilsdon, Jen Porter, Olivia Thomas, Donna Poppy, sales and marketing. I say this every time, but I can now say that all five of my books have been bestsellers, and there is hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about how lucky I am to call this thing I have done forever my job.

Thanks so much to Becky Hartley for the tour of the vets’, plus reading this draft for inconsistencies, fielding countless questions (both about my dog and my book!), meeting up specifically to discuss ‘what pets vets have’ and ‘things only vets notice’. Thanks too to Imran Mahmood for his kind and swift views on courtroom procedure – as a former lawyer, I feel the need to say any errors are mine (and, of course, deliberate. And, indeed, of course no lawyer would accept disclosure less than two weeks before trial, and no practising defence lawyer would agree to piecemeal weekly meetings, but Jason is no ordinary lawyer …).

Thanks so much, too, to Luigi Bruno, lawyer of the court of Novara, and to Marcella Compagnoni for describing Italian police procedure, and describing trees and smells and coffee for me, too, in lieu of being able to visit myself (all errors, again, my own!).

Thanks too to my father for reading an early draft of this and feeding back (and for the ingenious suggestion that Joe crash the car to cover up the damage!).

Writing primarily in isolation means I have far fewer experts to thank. Usually, my writing year is peppered with interesting chats, visits to cool places, research trips (oh, to go to Verona …). Instead, this is the year I have been most thankful for my friends. Writing is a naturally isolated job anyway, but my friends make it less so. Thanks for the banter, understanding, deep-voice notes, water-cooler gossip and love: Holly Seddon, Lucy Blackburn, Lia Louis, Claire Douglas, Ewa Hiles, The Wades, Becky Hartley and Beth O’Leary. I am my full self with you guys and that is a complete privilege.

Finally, as always, thanks to David. You are Jack in Everything but the Truth, you are Reuben in Anything You Do Say, you are Marc and Scott in No Further Questions, you are Aidan in How to Disappear and you are Tom in That Night. You are all the heroes.

(He is also Kelly, the male protagonist in my novel that I am writing as we speak, coming 2022. If you did want to preorder that, dear reader, I wouldn’t say no.)

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