I'm perfectly discriminating,' he said with a devilish smile.

'How's that? No blondes after Labour Day?'

'I said I was discriminating, not an imbecile.

Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.

Unusual financial activity: none, unless you count the fact that someone in the family is way too into Civil War biographies. (Can this be a possible indication of Confederate insurgents still living and working in Virginia? Must research further.)

Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn’t last long in nature. They’re too conspicuous.

I’m a cold-hearted bastard. I’m insular, I’m jaded, a workaholic, I’m ruthless and I’m self-serving. I don’t do forever, I rarely even do “I’ll call you tomorrow”. And just because I’m here now it does not mean if you ask me to stay I will.

His own parents, the estimable Gilchrists, a couple who had taken the 'till death' part of their own wedding vows so seriously he wouldn't be surprised if they one day throttled one another, had naturally wangled the next best seat in the house: row two, on the aisle.