Oh, do please be quick. I hate to be rude, but they absorb dreadfully if you leave them too long."
-Thomas Lynley. New Scotland Yard." As he spoke his full identification, he realised that it was the first time he'd done so since Helen's death. He blinked at this knowledge and the quick but fleeting pain that it brought him. He showed his identification to the woman. He said, -Niamh Triglia? Formerly Parsons?"
She said, -Yes, that's who I am."
-I need to speak with you about your husband. Jonathan Parsons. May I come in?"
-Oh yes. Of course." She stepped back from the door to admit him. She led him through a sitting room largely given to bookshelves, which were themselves heavily given to paperback books interspersed with family photographs and the occasional seashell, interesting stone, or piece of driftwood. Beyond this, the kitchen overlooked a small back garden with a patch of lawn, neat flower beds bordering it, and a leafing tree in its centre.
Here in the kitchen, the crab cakes were managing to produce an impressive disorder. Hot oil splattering onto the cooktop largely characterised the chaos, followed by a draining board covered with bowls, tins, wooden spoons, a carton of eggs, and a coffee press whose liquid was long since gone and whose remaining grounds looked as if they'd been forgotten ages ago.
Niamh Triglia went to the cooker and flipped the crab cakes, which produced a new burst of splattering. She said, -The difficulty is managing to get the breadcrumbs to brown without dousing the entire mixture with so much oil that you feel as if you're eating badly done chips. Do you cook, Mr.... It was Superintendent, though, wasn't it?"
-Yes," he said. -As to the superintendent part. As to the cooking, it's not one of my strengths."
-It's my passion," she confessed. -I had so little time to do it properly when I was teaching, and once I took my pension, I threw myself into it. Cookery courses at the community centre, programmes on the telly, that sort of thing. Problem is the eating bit."
-Your efforts don't please you?"
-On the contrary, they please me far too much." She indicated her body, which was fairly shrouded by her apron. -I try to cut the recipes down for one person, but maths was never my strong suit and most of the time I make enough for at least four."
-Are you alone here, then?"
-Mmm. Yes." She used the corner of the egg turner to lift one of the crab cakes and examine its degree of brownness. -Lovely," she murmured. From a nearby cupboard, she took a plate, which she covered with several layers of kitchen towel. From the fridge, she took a small mixing bowl.
-Aioli," she said, dipping her chin towards the mixture. -Red pepper, garlic, lemon, et cetera.
Getting the balance of tastes just right is the issue with a good aioli. That and the olive oil, naturally. Very good e.v.o. is essential."
-I'm sorry? Evio?" Lynley wondered if this was a style of cooking.
-EVO. Extra-virgin olive oil. The virginest one can find. If there are degrees of virginity in olives. To tell the truth, I've never been sure what it means when an olive oil is extra virgin. Are the olives virgins? Are they harvested by virgins? Are they pressed by virgins?" She brought the bowl of aioli to the kitchen table and returned to the cooker, where she began carefully depositing the crab cakes onto the kitchen towels that covered the plate. She took another set of kitchen towels and laid these on top of the cakes, pressing them gently into the concoction to remove as much of the residual oil as she could. From the oven, then, she brought forth three more plates, and Lynley was able to see what she had meant about failing to reduce her recipes so as to cook for one person only. Each plate was similarly dressed with kitchen towels and crab cakes. It looked as if she'd cooked more than a dozen.
-Fresh crab isn't essential," she told him. -You can use tinned. Frankly, I find you really can't tell the difference if the crab is going to be used in a cooked dish. On the other hand, if it's going to be eaten in something uncooked - salad? a dip for vegetable biscuits or the like - you're best to go with fresh. But you have to make sure it's fresh fresh. Trapped that day, I mean." She deposited the plates on the table and