The Skeleton Man

Acknowledgements

I owe a debt to many in the writing of The Skeleton Man. The village of Jude’s Ferry is a fiction but its story was inspired by that of a real-life community. I must therefore thank Rex Sawyer for his affectionate history, Little Imber on the Down: Salisbury Plain’s Ghost Village. My lost village is a patchwork of many places real and imaginary. I stole the name from the Jude’s Ferry Inn at West Row, near Mildenhall, and anyone wishing to drink in the true atmosphere of the watery fens can do no better than to stop a while at this inn on the site of a Roman port. The Five Miles from Anywhere pub I describe doesn’t exist, although the name was once popular in the Fens.

The live Peytons in my story are also fictitious, though the Peyton family tombs are real enough; they lie in the church at Isleham, near Ely, and are well worth a visit.

In my career as a provincial journalist I have on several occasions been the guest of the Territorial Army – particularly during Operation Lionheart, the largest troop exercise in Europe since D-Day. I would like to thank the TA for their welcome in the past and for providing valuable background information. All my military characters are fictional, but their diligence and courage are real.

My thanks to Paul Horrell for lending me his expertise on cars generally over the years and particularly for offering an insight into the left-hand-drive market.

One of the most bizarrely named institutions I have ever described is the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Ely, but it is most certainly real and does a wonderful job. Of course, all characters and episodes related to it here are fictional.

Dr Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge provided some jargon-free advice on DNA identification within families; Jane Kennedy, Surveyor of Fabric at Ely cathedral, delivered an invaluable primer in medieval tombs; and Roger Steward, of Anglian Water Services, took the time to show me round the magnificent Soham water tower.

As always, this book would not have appeared without the support of the team which has so far ensured the publication of five Philip Dryden mysteries. Beverley Cousins, my editor, Faith Evans, my agent, and Midge Gillies, my wife, are a triumvirate without whom I would be lost. Trevor Horwood, my copy-editor, and Jenny Burgoyne, who read the manuscript, allow us all to sleep easier at nights.

Lastly, the landscape. Anyone trying to follow the plot using an Ordnance Survey map will go mad in the attempt. I have shuffled the real world to make the most of the wonderful treasure house of Fen nomenclature, and to keep one step ahead of the libel lawyers.