Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Delaney could feel the wind roaring, the blood pounding in his ears as he gripped her arm, tight enough for her to wince. 'Tell me?'

'We've got a lead, Jack.'

The Ancient Mariner, it is told, could fix people with his beady eye in a room and, to a man and woman, they'd listen spellbound to his tale. If I fix people with my beady eye in a room they scatter like the thirteen tribes of Israel. So thanks are firstly due to you, reader, for letting me take you on this journey into Delaney's world. Not, it has to be said, a pleasant world, but made richer by your presence.

Louise Tam ordered me to write this book in the first place, Robert Caskie, the Lancelot of the publishing world, championed its completion and cause, James Nightingale made it far better than it was and Jane Selley polished it up like a shiny apple. Thanks to Caroline Gascoigne, Kate Elton and all the wonderful people at Random House for not booting me out of their door in the first place. And thanks, of course, to Mum and Dad without whom nothing much, least and most of all this, would have been possible.

Lastly, the careful reader may have noted that DI Jack Delaney is partial to an occasional drop of the fortifying spirit, and in this regard I must acknowledge the Wheatsheaf and Lobster public houses, of West Beckham and Sheringham respectively, for the invaluable assistance their excellent staff provided in this most vital area of research.

As for the city, Delaney's London is like a terminally infected, sick man crying out for medical attention. Delaney is certainly no surgeon, but, as Bernard Cromwell might well put it, he will don his gown and march, scalpel in hand, once more.

MP