“Would you? You’re a deep one, Guv. Got the thing for an eighteen-year-old you’re keeping hidden?”
“It’s the whole bonding issue,” Bea replied. “It’s how she’s managed to avoid it.” She frowned at the coach ahead of them, at the black belch of its exhaust emission. She braked to put some distance between her Land Rover and the other vehicle. “She doesn’t seem to be bothered by bonding. She doesn’t seem to bond at all.”
“To her lovers, you mean?”
“Isn’t that the very devil of being a woman? You attach yourself to a man, you form what you think is a bond with him, and then…wham. He does something to show you that, despite the longings, stirrings, and absurdly romantic beliefs of your sweet little faithful heart, he isn’t the least bonded to you.”
“Personal experience?” Havers asked shrewdly, and Bea felt the other woman studying her.
“Of a sort,” Bea said.
“What sort would that be?”
“The sort that ends in divorce when an unplanned pregnancy disrupts one’s husband’s life plans. Although I’ve always found that oxymoronic.”
“What? Unplanned pregnancy?”
“No. Life plans. What about you, Sergeant?”
“I stay away from it all. Unplanned pregnancies, life plans, bonding. The whole flipping package. The more I see, the more I think a woman’s better off having a deep and loving relationship with a vibrator. And possibly a cat as well, but only possibly. It’s always nice to have something living to come home to, although an aspidistra would probably do in a pinch.”
“There’s wisdom in that,” Bea acknowledged. “It certainly keeps one from the entire male-female dance of misunderstanding and destruction, doesn’t it. But I do think it all comes down to bonding in the end: this problem we seem to have with men. Women bond, and men don’t. It’s to do with biology, and we’d probably all be better off if we could simply cope with living in herds or prides or whatever: one male of the species sniffing up a dozen females with the females accepting this as the course of life.”
“They reproduce, while he…what?…fetches home the dead whatever for breakfast?”
“They’re a sisterhood. He’s window dressing. He services them but they bond to each other.”
“It’s a thought,” Havers said.
“Isn’t it just.” The tour coach signaled to turn, which finally freed the road ahead. Bea increased her speed. “Well, Aldara seems to have taken care of the man-woman problem. No bonding for that girl. And just in case bonding seems likely, let’s bring in another man. Maybe three or four.”
“The herd in reverse.”
“You’ve got to admire her.”
They dwelt on this silently for the rest of the trip, which took them to Princes Street and the offices of the Watchman. There, they held a brief conversation with a receptionist cum secretary called Janna, who said of Bea’s hair, “Brilliant! That’s just the colour my old gran says she wants. What’s it called?” which didn’t endear her much to the DI. On the other hand, the young woman happily revealed that Max Priestley was at that moment on St. Mevan Down with someone called Lily, and if they wanted to speak to him, a brief walk “round the corner and up the hill” would take them to him.