-I choose to be committed to improving conditions for the animals therein."
-Subverting the system from within."
-It makes more sense than carrying a protest sign, doesn't it."
-Rather like going on a foxhunt with a herring attached to your horse."
-Do you like foxhunting?"
-I find it execrable. I've been only once, on Boxing Day one year. I must have been eleven years old. My conclusion was that Oscar had it right, although I couldn't have said as much at the time.
Just that I didn't like it and the idea of a pack of dogs on the trail of a terrified animal...and then being allowed to tear it to pieces if they find it...It wasn't for me."
-You've a soft heart, then, for the animal world."
-I'm not a hunter, if that's what you mean. I would have made a very bad prehistoric man."
-No killing sabre-tooth tigers for you."
-Evolution, I'm afraid, would have ground to a precipitate halt had I been at the tribal helm."
She laughed. -You're very droll, Thomas."
-Only in fits and starts," he told her. -Tell me how you subvert the system."
-The zoo? Not as well as I would like to." She helped herself to more green beans and she passed the bowl to him, saying, -Have some more. This is my mother's recipe. The secret is what you do with the mint, popping it into the hot olive oil just long enough to wilt it, which releases its flavour." Her nose wrinkled. -Or something like that. Anyway, the beans you boil only five minutes. Any longer and they'll be mushy, which is the last thing you want."
-Nothing being worse than a mushy bean," he noted. He took another helping. -All praise to your mother. These are very good. You've done her proud. Where is she, your mother? Mine's just south of Penzance. Near Lamorna Cove. And I fear she cooks about as well as I do."
-You're a Cornwall man, then?"
-More or less, yes. And you?"
-I grew up in Falmouth."
-Born there?"
-I...Well, yes, I suppose. I mean, I was born at home and at the time my parents lived just outside Falmouth."
-Were you really? How extraordinary," Lynley said. -I was born at home as well. We all were."
-In more rarefied surroundings than my own birthing chamber, I daresay," Daidre pointed out.
-How many of you are there?"
-Just three. I'm the middle child. I've an older sister - that would be Judith - and a younger brother, Peter. You?"
-One brother. Lok."
-Unusual name."
-He's Chinese. We adopted him when I was seventeen." She cut a wedge of her Portobello Wellington neatly and held it on her fork as she went on. -He was six at the time. He's reading maths at Oxford at the moment. Quite brainy, the dickens."
-How did you come to adopt him?"
-We saw him on the telly, actually, a programme on BBC1 about Chinese orphanages. He was handed over because he has spinal bifida. I think his parents thought he'd not be able to care for them in their old age - although I don't know that for sure, mind you - and they didn't have the wherewithal to care for him either, so they gave him up."
Lynley observed her. She seemed completely without artifice. Everything she said could be easily verified. But still...-I like the we, " he told her.
She was spearing up some salad. She held the fork midway to her mouth, and she coloured lightly. -The we?" she said, and it came to Lynley that she thought he was referring to the two of them, at that moment, seated at her little dining table. He grew hot as well.
-You said ‗We adopted him.' I liked that."
-Ah. Well, it was a family decision. We always reached big decisions as a family. We had Sunday-afternoon family meetings, right after the joint of beef and the Yorkshire pud."
-Your parents weren't vegetarians, then?"
-Goodness no. It was meat and veg. Lamb, pork, or beef every Sunday. The occasional chicken.
Sprouts - Lord, I do hate sprouts...always did and always will - boiled into submission, as well as carrots and cauliflower."
-But no beans?"
-Beans?" She looked at him blankly.
-You said your mother taught you to cook green beans."
She looked at the bowl of them, where ten or twelve remained uneaten. She said, -Oh yes. The beans. That would have been after her cookery course. My father went for Mediterranean food in a very big way and Mum decided there had to be life beyond spaghetti Bolognese, so she