Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge by Ovidia Yu

Author:Ovidia Yu
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-04T19:00:00+00:00

16

Usual Suspects

“So, all the usual suspects are here!” Brian Wong said jovially as he joined their table that evening. As usual he was the last to arrive, and he slipped in beside Cherril. “Mycroft not coming? I’ll sit here then.” He nodded to Mike. “Good to see you again.”

“We started first,” Aunty Lee said, stating the obvious.

“Of course! I would have been upset if you’d waited!”

Dinner in the café was served family style that night, with everyone helping themselves from serving dishes placed at the center of their table. Nina and Lisa, one of the part-time helpers, served them and the two other tables of paying guests. Out of consideration for Mike, Aunty Lee had ordered relatively bland dishes—a chicken stewed in soy sauce and ginger, a steamed pomfret, steamed shiitake mushrooms and baby kai-lans, and battered fried prawns. But from the relish with which Mike dunked his crispy-coated prawns in her sweet-and-sour chili sauce, Aunty Lee thought she could have gone with a more adventurous menu. Her mind had been dwelling on whether to try him on black pepper crab or chili crab when Brian arrived. After all, how a man ate his crab (and whether he had the tenacity to dig the sweetest meat out of the claw tips) showed so much about his character.

Inspector Salim nodded to Brian before continuing his conversation with Mike. “Your wife’s sister, Vallerie, has been staying at Mrs. Lee’s place. You haven’t seen her yet?”

“No. I was hoping Vallerie would be here tonight actually. I haven’t seen her since Allison and I split up.”

“Have you any idea why she might want to avoid you?”

“Is she? Good for her. But seriously, we didn’t have a problem before all this happened. Vall came to stay with us when I was posted here. Didn’t stay very long, but it wasn’t me she had trouble with.” Mike shook his head. “But some sisters are like that. Someone gave us some moon cakes, the ones with lotus seed paste inside. Allison liked them, but she would only allow herself one tiny sliver at a time. Then Vall came and picked up a whole cake and took a bite out of it. Allison completely lost it. She screamed at her, called her fat and disgusting, told her she was ashamed to be seen with her. Vall left the day after that. I didn’t blame her.”

“Over a moon cake.” Aunty Lee had to check: “Was it that good?”

“I’ve had better.”

“She sounds like she had real problems,” Brian said. “Psychological, I mean.” Aunty Lee looked at him curiously, waiting for more. But it appeared that Brian was using “psychological” to mean crazy beyond explanation.

“My late wife always had trouble letting things go. Like she picked on Vall for being fat because when they were children Vall was the fat sister. By the time I met her, she wasn’t so big, but to Allison she was always the fat sister, and I got the impression Allison resented her losing weight because she was supposed to be the ‘fat sister.

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