Like so many policing families, we learned very early on that sometimes we had to loan Bob to people who needed him more than we did.
At the time, it never felt extraordinary. It was simply our life.
The telephone would ring and, in a heartbeat, everything changed. A family meal would wait. Plans would be rearranged. Somewhere, another family was living through one of the worst days of their lives, and Bob was needed.
Our children grew up knowing that sometimes Dad wouldn't be home when he said he would. Birthdays were occasionally interrupted, Christmas celebrations sometimes started without him, and holidays could change in an instant. That wasn't because the job came before our family. It was because, for a little while, somebody else needed him more.
Years later, after Bob retired, I found myself wondering whether our children, and one day our grandchildren, would ever really know the man behind the job. They knew him as Dad and Grandad Bob, but they couldn't know what those interrupted family moments had meant, or why they had happened.
So, I suggested he should write about some of the investigations he had led.
He smiled and quietly said no.
Not because there weren't stories to tell. There were. But he never believed they belonged to him. Those stories belonged to the victims, to the families left behind and to the communities whose lives had been changed forever. He had simply been privileged to do the job he had promised to do. Looking back now, that conversation changed both our lives.
It was never our ambition to become writers. In truth, we almost stumbled into it. Instead of writing about real investigations, we found ourselves writing about what those investigations revealed about people. Not actual people, but characters who reflected the courage, compassion, humour and resilience we had witnessed throughout almost fifty years with West Yorkshire Police.
The kind of courage that rarely made the headlines – the friendships that carried people through impossible days. And the humour that somehow survived even the darkest moments. The loyalty between colleagues. The families waiting at home. The ordinary often tiny acts of kindness that often meant the most. Those were the things we couldn't leave behind when we left policing.
One lesson stayed with us long after we had both left the force. Before anyone is a police officer, a victim, a witness or a suspect, they are, first and foremost, a human being. Everything we write begins there.
People sometimes ask whether our novels are based on real cases. They aren't. The stories are fiction. The characters are fiction. But the emotions are real and so is the responsibility and the uncertainty. The love, the grief, the friendship and the hope are all drawn from a lifetime spent watching ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances.
Somewhere, without us really noticing, those experiences became Split Second. Not because we wanted to write about policing, but because we wanted to write about people. If our years in policing taught us anything, it was that first impressions are rarely the whole story. Good investigators learn to listen before they judge, to question before they conclude and to follow the evidence, wherever it might lead.
We so hope you'll take that same journey. Not just through the investigation, but alongside the people within it. Because, for us, they have always mattered most. Thank you for giving Split Second a place on your bookshelf. It is a privilege to share this story with you, and we hope you enjoy every page.
With our warmest wishes,
Carol and Bob Bridgestock
R.C. Bridgestock
