Bleeding Hearts (52 page)
Authors: Ian Rankin
Her parents’ place was just up the hill.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank The Haemophilia Society, and especially Alan Weir, for help with details of some aspects of haemophilia. Those who require more information should write to: The Haemophilia Society, 123 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7HR. Thanks also to David in Edinburgh, Andrew Puckett, and my wife Miranda for helping with research.
Gerald Hammond was knowledgeable as ever about firearms, and I should also thank the Estacado Gun Club for taking me along on a shoot. In fact, so many people in the USA helped with this book that it would take a sizeable supplement to list them all. So a general thank you must suffice. But special honours must go to Becky Hughes and David Martin in Seattle, Jay Schulman in Arlington, Mass., and Tresa Hughes in New York, for putting up with me, Miranda and our son Jack for so long.
The Chandler-Fulbright Award made it possible for me to spend so much time (and money) in the United States. I owe a debt to the estate of Raymond Chandler and to the staff of the Fulbright Commission in London, especially Catherine Boyle.
The real unsung heroes of this book are probably Elliott Abrams and Fawn Hall. For those who don’t know who they are, a two-part essay by Theodore Draper in the
New York Review of Books
serves as a good introduction, though you’ve really got to go to Draper’s book
A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs
or to the full Congressional Hearings to get the bigger picture. I quote from part one of the essay, published in the edition of 27 May 1993:
Unfortunately, Abrams didn’t know how to set up a secret account in which to deposit the expected $10 million from Brunei [with which to fund the Contras]. He went to Alan Fiers of the CIA and Oliver North of the NSC staff for tutoring, and chose to follow North’s advice. North gave him an index card with the number of a secret Swiss account, which North controlled; North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, accidentally transposed two digits in typing out the number on another card; Abrams gave the erroneous information to the Brunei foreign minister; and $10 million went into the account of a stranger from whom it took months to get it back.
BY IAN RANKIN
The Inspector Rebus series
Knots & Crosses
Hide & Seek
Tooth & Nail
Strip Jack
The Black Book
Mortal Causes
Let It Bleed
Black & Blue
The Hanging Garden
Death Is Not The End (novella)
Dead Souls
Set in Darkness
The Falls
Resurrection Men
A Question of Blood
Fleshmarket Close
Other Novels
The Flood
Watchman
Westwind
Writing as Jack Harvey
Witch Hunt
Bleeding Hearts
Blood Hunt
Short stories
A Good Hanging and Other Stories
Beggars Banquet
Omnibus editions
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses, Hide & Seek, Tooth & Nail) Rebus: The St Leonard’s Years (Strip Jack, The Black Book, Mortal Causes) Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed, Black & Blue, The Hanging Garden) Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls, Set in Darkness, The Falls)
All Ian Rankin’s titles are available on audio.
Also available:
Jackie Leven Said
by Ian Rankin and Jackie Leven
Table of Contents
Table of Contents