Peter Robinson - Innocent Graves

“Who called it in?”

“Rebecca Charters, sir. The vicar’s wife. She says Pierce is ready to turn himself in for the murder of Michelle Chappel.”

“But she’s not dead.”

“I suppose he doesn’t know that.”

“All right,” said Banks. “I’ll be right there.”

He sighed, picked up his sports jacket and hurried out into the hazy darkness.

I would first of all like to thank several people for reading and commenting upon the manuscript through its several drafts: my agent, Dominick Abel; Cynthia Good, from Penguin Books Canada; Natalee Rosenstein, from Berkley; and my copy editor, Mary Adachi.

I would also like to acknowledge expert help from a variety of sources. Thanks, as ever, to Detective Sergeant Keith Wright, of Nottingham CID, who answered my frequently silly questions with his characteristic patience and humor. Thanks also to Pamela Newall, from the Centre for Forensic Sciences, for saving me from sounding like a complete idiot on DNA, to Paul Bennett for reading and commenting on the trial scenes, to John Halladay for further information on legal procedure and to Dr. Marta Townsend for the displacement.

In addition, I would like to offer special thanks to Elly Pacey and Nancy Galić for the Croatian insults and to Emily Langran for the Yorkshire schoolgirl slang. And, last but not least, I must thank John Irvine for keeping my computer going through thick and thin, and for the occasional wicked line.

As usual, any mistakes are entirely my own and are made in the interests of the story.

PETER ROBINSON’S award-winning novels have been named a Best-Book-of-the-Year by Publishers Weekly, a Notable Book by the New York Times, and a Page-Turner-of-the-Week by People magazine. Robinson was born and brought up in Yorkshire, England, but has lived in North America for nearly twenty-five years.