For Death Comes Softly

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Dr Hugh White, Home Office Pathologist; Paul Westaway, emergency officer for the West Country ambulance service; North Devon coroner Brian Hall-Tomkin (who bears absolutely no relation to the appalling coroner in this book, but could be the wise man who proceeded him), North Devon coroner’s officer Keith James (whom I’m sure would not allow any coroner to behave the way my fictional one does); Hilary Corrin, Devon County Council emergency officer; Jeremy Metcalf of the Minmet gold-mining company — and, as ever, my Avon and Somerset police friends Steve and Frank, to whom this book is dedicated.

I shall always be grateful for the extraordinarily generous way in which all of these have given me their time and the benefit of their knowledge and experience.

It began with the holiday — if you could call it that. More like a last-ditch attempt at a cure for deep depression really.

Abri Island was not the place everybody would choose to get over a broken marriage and struggle with somewhat premature mid-life crisis. It suited me. I thought it would be bound to be peaceful, perhaps even to the point of being stupefyingly boring — which was just what I wanted. Somewhere you could do nothing except rest and recuperate, and nothing more would be expected by anyone.

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