Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories

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Dedicated to my son, Phil, ideas man and short story Dagger winner, and my upbeat American daughter, Kathy, who reads every word and asks for more.

Together with Jax, my ever-inspiring wife, they keep me going.

Let me tell you a story about a short story. It was called ‘The Bathroom’ and was my first in print, almost fifty years ago, in Winter’s Crimes, an annual collection from Macmillan, who had published my first novel. Soon after publication, a letter arrived from Ruth Rendell. As a novice author, I was thrilled to learn that a crime writer I admired but had never met had actually read my story and liked it enough to get in touch. The theme, a house with a sinister past and its influence on the current occupants, had interested Ruth and she wanted to see it for herself. The house was a real one and still existed, but the street had been given another name and I knew where to find it. Ruth, who lived in Highgate at the time and drew inspiration from long walks in London, went specially to see it and wrote back to tell me about the impression it made on her. Houses and the dark forces within them were a recurring theme in her writing. She had already written The Secret House of Death and later titles would include The House of Stairs and Thirteen Steps Down. We met and she generously encouraged me to write more short fiction and gave me a lovely quote for the cover of my next book.

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