'Male or female?'

'What does it matter? A head is a head.'

'Do you have any more details, sir?'

'None beyond the few that were sent by electric telegraph.'

Colbeck opened a drawer in his desk. 'I'll set off at once,' he said, taking out a copy of Bradshaw's Guide. 'Let's find a train that will get me there fast.'

'You'll take Sergeant Leeming with you.'

'Victor will not be happy about that.'

'His job is to obey orders.'

'And he always does so,' said Colbeck, running his finger down a list of departure times. 'Since we won't get to Crewe until well into the evening, it means that we'll have to stay the night. Victor hates to be away from his wife and children.'

Tallis raised a contemptuous eyebrow. 'You know my view of families,' he said. 'They cease to exist when a major crime has been committed. Detection takes precedence over everything. It's the main reason that I never married.'

Colbeck could think of other reasons why the superintendent had not succumbed to holy matrimony, chief among them being the brusque, authoritarian manner that would have little appeal to a member of the opposite sex. Tallis was a solid man in his fifties with grey hair and a neat moustache. Though he had left the army many years ago, he still looked as if he were on the parade ground. He respected Colbeck for his skill as a detective but he could never bring himself to like the undisputed dandy of Scotland Yard. There was a permanent unresolved tension between the two men.

Having selected a train, Colbeck closed his Bradshaw and put it back in the desk drawer. He gave his superior a token smile.

'Your devotion to duty is an inspiration to us all,' he said without a trace of irony, 'but some of us need more than the relentless pursuit of the criminal fraternity to get true fulfilment from life. Victor Leeming is a case in point.'