‘That’s right,’ Travis said. ‘She’s my mother. You’ve seen her?’

‘One of her films was on television last night, and they’re often shown in England. Everyone thought she’d go on to be a big star, but for some reason it didn’t happen.’

‘That’s because she had me. Total disaster.’

‘Did your father make her give up acting to be a full-time wife?’

‘They weren’t married. My father’s English, a businessman who’s always travelled a lot. Thirty years ago he was in the States to make some deal, met my mother briefly, and I’m the result.

‘He was already married to his second wife, his first having chucked him out for playing around. My mother’s film career was just taking off but he wanted her to throw it all away and follow him to England. Not for marriage, just to live as his mistress, be there when it suited him and keep quiet when it didn’t.’

‘I hope she told him what he could do with himself,’ Charlene said indignantly.

‘I’m proud to say that she did. In fact she did more than say it. If you met him you’d see a tiny little scar on his chin where she…let’s say, put her feelings into action.’

‘Do you mean Amos Falcon?’ Charlene said suddenly. ‘Hey, you’re one of the Falcon dynasty.’

‘In a sense,’ Travis said so quietly that she barely heard.

‘Amos Falcon was in the papers last week,’ she went on excitedly, ‘and there was a picture with this little scar-’

Travis groaned. ‘All right, yes, but please forget it. I shouldn’t have told you.’

Charlene began to chuckle. ‘The journalist went on about that scar, how the “heroic” Amos Falcon confronted a robber and drove him off, at the cost of injury to himself.’

Travis gave a shout of laughter. ‘Robber, my foot! Mom chucked an ashtray at him. She must have been a bit like you, losing your temper and storming out of the bank. She’s got her violent side too. I reckon you two would like each other. She really scared my father. Not that he’d ever admit it, but after that things tended to be at a distance.’