‘It’ll be great to have Doctor Bray back,’ enthused Sian.

It was becoming difficult for her to know what titles to give the various members of the Garth House team, as when alone, the secretary and technician would refer to their two employers as ‘Richard’ and ‘Angela’, but to their faces called them ‘doctor’. During the past few weeks, matters had become more complicated by the arrival of Priscilla, who although possessing a PhD like Angela Bray, insisted on being called by her Christian name.

‘Angela was afraid she would be away for at least month,’ agreed Moira, a neat dark-haired woman of about thirty. ‘I’m so glad her mother’s stroke wasn’t as serious as they feared.’

‘So am I, though it means I might be out of a job sooner than I thought!’ contributed Priscilla from her workbench. When Angela Bray had hurried home to Berkshire to look after her stricken mother, she had agreed to stand in as a locum to cope with the forensic serology and biology that was Angela’s preserve. They had once been colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Laboratory in London, until Priscilla had emigrated to Australia several years earlier. This hadn’t worked out and, since her return a few months earlier, she was existing on various locum jobs until something more permanent turned up.

Moira, though a good-natured woman who got on well with Priscilla, was secretly pleased that the very attractive redhead was not going to be a long-term fixture at Garth House. Though the young widow would hardly admit it even to herself, Moira was very much attracted to Richard Pryor and already had enough competition in the shapely form of Doctor Angela Bray, as well as the pretty and vivacious blonde technician, though realistically, Sian was too young to be a serious challenge.