In May of 2022, I took what you might think of as a slightly ridiculous trip. 

I’d already written Blood and Money, but I wanted to record my habitual crime scene video. Where I stand in the spot where the body is going to be found at the beginning of the book and talk to the camera about what happens in the book.

But there was a problem. The crime scene in Blood and Money is on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, beyond the point where the road reaches. And I live in Birmingham, which is 400 miles away.

But I had a plan. I also needed to do some research for the Cumbria Crime series, which I write with Joel Haynes. I could combine the two in one weekend.

So, one Saturday morning, very early, I set off from Birmingham. I was in Lancaster by lunchtime and spent that day touring the Cumbria coast, exploring potential locations for the Cumbria Crime series. It was a glorious day, and I got masses of inspiration, but that’s another story.

I spent the night in a hotel not too far from the M6 near Carlisle, and then got up the next morning with the intention of heading to the next stop on my trip. It was now Sunday morning, and I had a day to get to the crime scene in Blood and Money, do some research, record my video, and then get to a hotel for the night.

So once again, I set off. Luckily, the traffic north of Carlisle into Scotland is far less heavy than it is from Birmingham to the Lake District. I made great time and was past Glasgow by lunchtime. I stopped at a service station to get a very unimpressive lunch, and then ploughed on towards the eastern shores of Loch Lomond.

I hadn’t actually been here before. My research trips up to that point had been to the western side of the loch, where DI Jade Tanner lives. I’d used a combination of Google Maps, Google Street View, and photographs online to research the eastern side of the loch and get a feel for it for that opening crime scene.

But I hate writing crime scenes without actually going to the location, so I knew I needed to stand in the spot and see what it was like.

And it turned out to be incredibly useful. I drove up the single-track road past Drymen, pausing occasionally to let other cars pass. The most complicated moment was when two women in a campervan came past me, and I had to get right off the road to move out of their way. And at last, I was at the end of the road and the car park.

But there was a problem.

I’m a city girl. I’m not used to being in places where they don’t take cash, and this car park had a machine that only took cash.

Of course, I had no cash on me. 

I’d driven all the way here from Birmingham. There was no way I was going to turn around and give up, and I knew there wouldn’t be a cash point for miles and miles.

So, I took the risk.

I parked, but I didn’t pay. I knew there was a chance of getting a parking ticket, but to be honest, the parking ticket would probably have cost me less than the fuel to get all the way up to Loch Lomond from Birmingham.

So I parked my car, crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t get fined, and headed off north up the West Highland Way. The opening scene in Blood and Money features Phineas Montague, America’s newest tech billionaire. He has a house on the shores of the loch north of that car park, in a spot only accessible by helicopter. He’s a billionaire, of course, so that isn’t a problem.

But in order to find where that spot would be, I needed to walk. Which was no hardship, as the West Highland Way is a truly beautiful walk.

I headed north until eventually, I found the spot.

The house, of course, doesn’t exist – it’s only there in my imagination and in the pages of the book. But I didn’t need to stand where the house would be. I needed to stand where Phineas Montague would be when he was shot. It gave me the perfect opportunity not only to record that video but to imagine how Phineas could be shot and where the shooter would be.

This turned out to be instrumental in writing the final draft of the book, as I made a lot of edits based on what I learned that day. 

I discovered that there are small islands off that shore of the loch, which would be a great place for a sniper to hide. I worked out the distance over to the western shore and watched the road running along it. I noted that the road is noisy, even from the eastern shore. This gave me a feel of what it would be like to stand in that spot, which I could translate into Phineas’s feelings in chapter one, just as he’s about to die.

So, I walked around. I tramped through brambles, followed the path, and considered how the police vehicles would get to the crime scene, which turned out to be an issue as there was only a path and not a road. But walking that path helped me realize that you could get up there with a four-by-four. If I hadn’t walked it, I’d never have known. But now I could make those scenes more realistic.

I made notes in my head, took lots of photos, and recorded a video of myself speaking about the location to camera. And then, at last, I was done.

It was time to face the music.

I headed back to the car park, wondering if that ticket would be on the windscreen of my car. And when I arrived, there was a police van at the entrance to the car park.

For a moment, I panicked.

“Oh hell, I’ve got that ticket.”

But I reminded myself to calm down. I’d already accepted that if I got a ticket, it would just be an extraordinarily expensive parking fee. It was worth it, after all.

But police vans aren’t interested in parking; that’s the traffic warden’s job, and the police van must have been there on some other business. So, I hurried to my car, checked that there was no ticket – phew – and started to drive back south.

Once again, I took that narrow, winding, single-track lane south to Drymen, a bit different this time because I had that police van in front of me.

The driver of that van clearly knew the road because they were driving at a much higher speed than I would have. But I was behind them, which meant I was safe, so I followed. It gave me a good feel for how the police might drive around those lanes: again, useful for the books.

At last, I arrived at my hotel, which is the inspiration for the hotel that I use in McBride and Tanner Book Three: Power and Treachery. But that’s another story.

Blood and Money, I hope, is a much better book because I made that trip. It certainly made it more enjoyable to write, and I hope it makes it more enjoyable for you to read.