Clare, what should I do? This is not an OCD chant for comfort. I need her to guide me, as she always did when we were children. Just do the right thing, Gil. You know what that is.

I do. For once in my life, publishing the story is not the priority.

Johnny Todd has finally made it out of the theatre and on to the stage. The DJ has timed the music to perfection. ‘Song 2’ by Blur, Labour’s campaign anthem. The chorus kicks in as Todd steps forward, arms flapping in a disingenuous ‘calm down’ gesture. The crowd gets the joke and continues to roar: ‘WOO-HOO.’

He will make the country feel good about itself, for a while. But what happens when we find out that it was never about what we need, that it was always about him? What then? Where will voters turn when they learn that they’ve been gulled?

Rona is on the podium to the left of Johnny, but just behind him. Neville Tudor is on her right, parallel with her. To the back of the stage, eyes lit with joy and excitement, is Marilyn. I am at the front, just yards from her, and I try to connect with her. I shout and wave, but she’s blinded by the television lights, and my voice is lost in the rapturous roar. I have lost her, but I’ve found Clare.

It’s time to go back to my desk and check the splash copy for the last edition. My sister has told me everything that happened. I’m not going to write it. Today.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

This book is presumptuous. I love thrillers and crime stories. Dorothy L. Sayers and John Buchan are heroes of mine. But I would never have dared write one without the encouragement of Ben Willis of Bonnier Books UK. But where to set it? Which time, which place?

Today’s politics are dizzyingly complex and emotional. I don’t yet understand them well enough. But I am clear that the fraught politics of personal and national identity, their triumph over the politics of class, have their poisonous roots in what felt like a brave new dawn twenty-five years ago. Which is why Gil Peck is riding his bicycle in the spring of 1997.

I discussed the project with my agent Jonny Geller and my partner Charlotte Edwardes. I expected both to chuckle indulgently and suggest I return to the so-called ‘real world’. But they surprised me by encouraging me to have a go (and in Charlotte’s case to edit the almost-finished draft with her normal panache and suggest judicious excisions of my clunkier metaphors).

Ben put me in touch with a brilliant thriller writer, Tom Harper, who could not have been more generous with his guidance, especially on structure and pacing. As a very mature student, I hope I haven’t let Tom down too badly. Biggest thanks go to him, Charlotte, Jonny and Ben.