Offended, he blinked. “It wasn’t funny, Moyra. My dad ran down the road to get it back, and she just stood there, rooted to the spot . . .” He raised his hands to his own hair. “I didn’t know her hair had fallen out. Dad helped her put the wig back on, but the parting was all crooked. Underneath all the glamour she was ugly; an ugly stranger.”

“And everybody saw it? Did she ever talk about it?”

“She never even mentioned it.”

“I always thought it was just old age, you know. I’ve never said anything to her, but it’s so obvious. How long has she been bald, then?”

“I don’t know. She still pretends it’s her own hair, even to me, says it needs trimming and so on.”

“Well what do you know! Underneath it all the Rita Hayworth of Warrington is really Yul Brynner in disguise!”

He looked at her for a moment, then laughed his lovely, warm, infectious laugh. He slipped his arms around her and kissed her on the neck.

“Did you mean it, George? About getting married?”

He lifted her in his arms and swung her around. “I love you, Moyra—what do you say, will you marry me?”

“Will I? I’ve had the license for two years, George, and you won’t get out of it.”

He smiled at her. Sometimes his resemblance to his mother took her breath away. He was so good-looking, every feature neat and clean-cut. Doris had been a real looker, and George was the most handsome man Moyra had ever known. Held tight in the circle of his arms she looked up into his dark eyes, eyes a woman would pray for, with thick dark lashes. Innocent eyes . . .

“I love you, George, I love you.”

His kiss was gentle and loving. He drew her towards the bedroom.

“George! It’s nearly dinnertime!”

“It can wait . . .”

DCI Tennison stared at the headline, furious. Then she ripped it down from the Incident Room door. She took a deep breath, crumpled the paper into a ball and entered the room.

The men fell silent, watching her. She held the ball of paper up so they could all see, then tossed it accurately into a waste-paper basket.

“OK, we’ve all read it, so the least said about it the better. But it’s not just me with egg on my face.”

She crossed to her desk and dumped her briefcase. “It makes our surveillance operation look like a circus.”

“Any word on what their readers’ survey came up with, ma’am?” asked Otley with a snide smile. “For or against female officers on murder cases?”

She gave him an old-fashioned look. “Oh, you’re a biased load of chauvinists, and there’s thousands more like you!”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” chipped in Dave Jones, “you could always get a job in panto!”