Careless in Red

Aldara drove her shovel into the earth. She did it easily, without anger or dismay. She said, “I believe this conversation is at an end, Inspector Ha

“Ah. So you did get someone onboard prior to Santo’s death. Someone closer to your age, I’ll wager. You seem the sort who learns quickly, and I expect Santo and Madlyn gave you a very good lesson about what it means to take up with a teenager, no matter how good he is in bed.”

“What you ‘expect’ does not interest me,” Aldara said.

“Right,” Bea said, “as it doesn’t rob you of a single eyelash.” She said to Havers, “I think we have what we need, Sergeant,” and then to Aldara, “save for your fingerprints, madam. And someone will stop by today to rob you of those.”

Chapter Twenty-five

THEY GOT CAUGHT BEHIND A LUMBERING TOUR COACH, WHICH made their trip from the cider farm back to Casvelyn longer than Bea had expected it would be. At another time, she not only would have been impatient, leaning on the horn in an aggressive display of bad ma

“She’s a piece of work,” Havers said. “I’ll give her that.” The sergeant, Bea saw, was itching for a cigarette after their talk with Aldara Pappas. She’d taken her packet of Players from her shoulder bag and she’d been rolling a fag between her thumb and her fingers as if hoping to absorb the nicotine epidermally. She seemed to know better than to light it, though.

“I rather admire her,” Bea admitted. “Truth to tell? I’d bloody love to be like that.”

“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 unpla

“What? Unpla

“No. Life plans. What about you, Sergeant?”

“I stay away from it all. Unpla

“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 Ja

Bea and Havers made the walk. It took them to the top of the town where a roughly shaped triangle of maram grass and wild carrot was bisected by a road that led from lower Casvelyn to an area called the Sawsneck, where the upper crust from faraway cities had once come to spend their holidays in a line of grand hotels at the turn of the twentieth century. These were now seriously down at heel.

The aforementioned Lily turned out to be a golden retriever who was joyfully bounding through the heavy-topped grass in delighted pursuit of a te

It was windy on the down, and Max Priestley was the only person there. He was calling encouragement to his dog, who seemed to need little enough of it although she was panting rather more heartily than might have been good for an animal her age and in her condition.

Bea began to hike in Priestley’s direction, Havers trudging behind her. There were no paths as such on the down, just beaten trails through the grass and standing pools of rainwater where depressions in the land marked the ground. Neither of them had the proper shoes for a walk in the place, but Sergeant Havers’ high-top trainers were at least preferable to Bea’s street shoes. She cursed as her foot sank into a hidden puddle.

“Mr. Priestley?” she called as soon as they were within hearing distance. “Could we have a word please?” She began to reach for her identification.

He seemed to focus on her fiery hair. “You’d be DI Ha

“Correct on both fronts,” Bea told him. “DS Havers.”

“I’ll need to keep Lily moving as we talk. We’re working on her weight. Getting it off, that is. Putting it on hasn’t been a problem, as she shows up at mealtimes as regular as a ne’er-do-well brother, and I’ve never been able to resist those eyes.”

“I’m a dog owner myself,” Bea said.

“Then you know what I mean.” He batted the ball some fifty yards and Lily went after it with a yelp. He said, “I expect you’ve come to talk about Santo Kerne. I reckoned someone would be here eventually. Who gave you my name?”