The Calling (39 page)

I owe a debt to Simon Morgan, who points out my abundant procedural inaccuracies without ever laughing.

My gratitude also to Doreen Lally and Tracy Harwood for their procedural and medical insights. And for laughing like crazed madwomen.

Of the many sources I consulted, I’m particularly indebted to
Adoption: Uncharted Waters
by David Kirschner PhD (Juneau Press, 2006), Paul Talling’s
Derelict London
(Random House Books, 2008) and
Edgelands
by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts (Jonathan Cape, 2011).

Much of Maggie Reilly’s campaigning piece I lifted from Camilla Cavendish’s
Times
article ‘We Can’t Just Trust Experts on the Risk to a Child’ (November 10, 2010).

Vasile Sava’s ardent defence of his misdeeds owes a great deal to Minette Marrin’s
Times
article ‘Baby Trafficking May Not Be All Bad’ (October 8, 2006).

Finally, my gratitude to Francesca Main and Gordon Wise, my publisher and literary agent respectively. I promised them a proper novel, and I promised to deliver it on time.

I failed miserably at the latter: if this were a movie, there’d be someone hovering at my shoulder right now, impatiently waiting to grab this piece of paper the instant I rip it from the typewriter.

If it’s a proper book, that’s only because their conviction and occasional tough love kept me going.

As did the unwavering faith of my wife, Nadya, and the very existence of my joyous, excellent sons, Ethan and Finn. My greatest debt, as ever, is to them.