When I was a kid our car inevitably headed east or north, into Lincolnshire or Norfolk, towards the cold grey of the North Sea. My first trip south – to sunny Bournemouth – happened when I was about two years old, so all of my memories of it are second hand. My mother had suddenly conceived the desire to learn to knit socks and was apparently stuck on how to turn the heel. What could be more obvious a solution than to hop on a coach and receive instruction from Great Aunt Jessie? Family folklore suggests that my father came home to a note on the kitchen table, telling him that his dinner was in the oven, and that we’d be back in a week or two.

I don’t recall mother ever actually knitting socks after that, though we both darned a fair few pairs. She returned to work not long after and I suspect she preferred the order and organisation of accounts and adding machines to the tangle of wool.

 I had to wait quite a time for my next trip south. This time I was fifteen and stayed with family of a school friend in Cornwall and I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that the glories of the Cornish coast inspired some very romantic and anxty teenage poetry. Later, trips to Devon and Dorset with my own family- more fossils than poetry this time – cemented the fondness and when I had cause to spend a week close to Brighton, while the new Henry Johnstone was being planned, this became an obvious location for the book.

I spent a week walking the routes Henry might walk and driving the roads along which the Mickey Hitchens car chase takes place – though not at the speeds Mickey reached, especially as the first time was at night! Sergeant Tibbs’ horrified reaction definitely mirrors my own.

The walk along the Undercliff was just beginning construction when Henry and Mickey were there, but I also walked a good section of that each morning and marvelled at the open water swimmers. These hardy women turned up every day. In November.

The White Horse Hotel in Rottingdean, mentioned in the book, was demolished in the early 1930s and the present building erected in its place and I’ve got to admit that the tower like construction to one side partly inspired the shape of the eight windowed room in which Henry stays. It’s also partly inspired by a house glimpsed from a train, imposing grit stone walls broken by rather mean and narrow gothic arched windows, the solidity broken only by a strange half tower plonked on one corner, as though the architect was determined to have at least a bit of fun. It just had to turn up in a book eventually!

This Henry took me by surprise, in a way. I thought the story of Henry and Mickey Hitchens might be over after the Girl in the Yellow Dress seemed to bring things to a logical end. It would see I was wrong. I’m currently planning the next and the location of that is back where the series started, with The Murder Book. Henry returns to Lincolnshire where he has unfinished business and Mickey will continue with his training of Sergeant Bexley Tibbs. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to them next.