Score!

I must thank Ingrid Kohlmeyer of English National Opera and Helen Anderson and Rita Grudzien of the Royal Opera House, who were constantly helpful. I am also indebted to Katherine Fitzherbert, who runs English Touring Opera, which brings such joy to music lovers around the country. Katherine allowed me to sit backstage with the DSM Helen Bunkall at a production of Rigoletto and work the lightning flashes. She also invited me to Werther followed by a riotous, end-of-tour party. Here I had the luck to meet the conductor Alistair Dawes, then Head of Music Staff at the Royal Opera House, and his wife Lesley-Ann, a singer and teacher, who have since become extremely close friends, letting me sit in on lessons, taking me through the Don Carlos score and answering endless questions.

Other singers who have given me wonderful advice include Susan Parry, Penelope Shaw, Andy Busher, Christine Botes, Joanna Colledge and John Hudson.

I must thank my musician friends, who sometimes have rather trenchant views on singers. They include Chris and Jacoba Gale, Ian Pillow, Diggory Seacome, Luke Strevens, Jack and Linn Rothstein, Lance Green, who thought up the title Score!, and his wife Justine, Richard Hewitt and Steena and Marat Bisengaliev.

I have also been royally entertained and enlightened on the subject of opera by dear Sir Ian Hunter, Nicholas Kenyon, Michael Volpe, George Humphreys and Paul Hughes.

As Don Carlos in my book is set in modern dress, I spent an utterly magical two hours recce-ing the state rooms at Buckingham Palace for ideas. This was kindly organized by Claire Zammitt. These rooms are only open to the public from early August to early October. My director in Score!, however, visits the rooms in early spring, which was the only time it could be fitted into the plot. I hope Her Majesty will forgive the poetic licence.

St Peter’s Grange, a beautiful fifteenth-century retreat nestling in the wooded grounds of Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, is the model for the abbey, around which filming and murder take place in Score!. I was very privileged to have Father Damien of Prinknash and Peter Clarkson to show me repeatedly over the house and garden and to answer endless questions on its dark and romantic history.

Score! is my first and almost certainly last whodunit. After battling with the complexities of murder, I rate the genius of Agatha Christie and P.D. James even higher than that of Einstein. I would have given up altogether had it not been for the kindness and co-operation of Gloucester and Stroud Police. No matter what hour I rang, no matter how fatuous the query, they entered into the spirit and never failed to provide an answer. Their only disagreement was whether the male member remains erect after the moment of death, Stroud maintaining it did, Gloucester it didn’t. Other police officers beguiled me with thrilling tales of murder and later waded through the manuscript for errors. They know who they are and the extent of my gratitude.

Gloucester Fire and Ambulance Services were just as helpful, particularly their assistant divisional officer, Graham Jewell. Gloucester Reference Library kindly checked names for me. The British Polio Fellowship, the British Film Industry and Weatherbys were also always ready with answers.

A writer does not automatically expect kindness from her own profession, but few could have been more welcoming and generous with their time than David Fingleton, Mel Cooper, Charles Osborne, Michael Coveney, Malcolm Hayes, Norman Lebrecht, Keith Clarke and Richard Fawkes of Classical Music, and James Jolly and Christopher Pollard of Gramophone.

I must also thank the authors of five books which were invaluable in helping me to understand my subject: The Colin Clark Diaries: The Prince, the Showgirl and Me; Ring Resounding, the marvellous account by the late John Culshaw of the first recording in stereo of Wagner’s Ring; The Jigsaw Man, a study of criminal psychology by Paul Britton; John Baxter’s wonderful biography of Steven Spielberg; and the late Sir Rudolph Bing’s Five Thousand Nights at the Opera.