I told the Salisbury Novichok story through the people who lived it: Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, poisoned after entering Sergei Skripal’s home; Charlie Rowley, who unknowingly gave Dawn Sturgess the perfume bottle that killed her; frontline medical staff; senior government figures including Amber Rudd and Lord Mark Sedwill; and Sergei Skripal’s niece in Russia.

Moving between those caught directly in the attack and those responsible for the national response, I looked for the human scale inside a story of state-sponsored assassination, espionage and international politics.