There is no other place to start than with Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks. Rachel is the Senior Commissioning Editor with Avon Books and is the editor who rolled my words in glitter for The Friend, but far more than that, she was the driver behind me getting published with Avon in the first place. Rachel took a chance when all I had to offer was a confused vision about ‘some bloke being tied up with a gun in his mouth’. She certainly didn’t have to; the world of crime-writing is much like the world of crime itself, very competitive and with any number of us trying to make a living out of it. I only hope she doesn’t regret it now!

Alongside Rachel, Avon Books clearly work closely together and I would like to extend my gratitude to the team as a whole. Once a story has a first draft, Team Avon sweep it up with cheery gusto; improve it, give it a beautiful jacket, an alluring blurb and manage it right through to a final product that is something we can all be massively proud of. I know I am.

Another person I would like to make public my sincere appreciation is Charlie Paine. A Senior CSI for an outstanding police force, Charlie has guided me through all the gory bits for fourteen books. We are now at the point where I turn up unannounced and she looks up, rolls her eyes and says ‘here to talk about death are we? I’ll put the kettle on’, while I twist my toe into the floor on the threshold to her office. Details included in The Friend came from Charlie taking hours out of her rest day and ensuring a constant top up of tea in her beautiful garden. Time is our most valuable commodity and that she – and her wonderful wife – would give me so much is something I appreciate more than I can put into words.

The Friend also needed expertise from an NHS source, and – in the craziest of years for our medical heroes – I need to thank Charlotte Elias, Clinical Skills Tutor at Cardiff University. Charlotte gave up some of her precious time to listen to me whittle on about how a character was going to spend much of the book in a coma, how I didn’t really know what that might look like and I didn’t really know how it was going to end up. Fortunately, Charlotte has the patience required for her career choice and she provided me with incredible detail. Far too much, in fact, and I should say that if there are any inaccuracies around medical elements in this book, that is entirely my fault – I will have cut out the wrong bit!

Thanks also to DC Leggett, who I was able to bounce off the procedural stuff that I should definitely know already. And who misses me more than he will ever admit.