Free No Way Out by Samantha Hayes

detective inspector.
    ‘Are you OK for money?’ It had to be asked. Jo hadn’t had a paying job in years.
    They were in the kitchen now. Nothing much had changed in here since her last visit either. In fact, you wouldn’t even know that Malc had left, Lorraine thought, noticing a pair of man’s sunglasses on the dresser and a tweed cap hooked over the peg beside the back door.
    She’d never thought of Malc as a cap man. He worked in the City, commuting some days, but more often than not he’d be holed up in his Docklands studio flat, returning to Radcote at weekends.
    Lorraine would never have guessed he’d give up the country life so easily. But if she was honest, she thought Jo looked better for being single. Her skin seemed healthier and brighter, and her eyes had a mischievous sparkle to them.
    ‘Malc’s being generous. Giving me what I need.’
    Stella dragged a wooden chair from under the table, making a terrible noise on the quarry tiles. She slumped down, earphone wires winding out from within the unbrushed tangle of her hair. She rested her head on the table and made an overstated yawn.
    ‘Oh, poor little Stell,’ Jo said. ‘Didn’t you get all your beauty sleep last night?’ She rubbed her back playfully. She had always doted on her nieces.
    Stella made a grumbling sound from within the nest of her arms.
    ‘You can do me a favour if you like and wake Freddie up. He’s still in bed. A couple of bombs and an earthquake should do the trick.’
    Another indignant moan and squirm from Stella made Jo stop teasing.
    ‘Shall I make some tea?’
    Lorraine nodded, trying not to show her irritation with her sister’s news. Whatever she felt about Malcolm and the way he’d so speedily stepped into Jo’s life eight years ago (although that was almost certainly down to Jo’s impulsiveness at work) and now his sudden retreat, he was the man her sister had chosen to marry, the man who had adopted her son, the man who’d looked after her and supported her financially. And knowing Jo as she did, that was no mean feat.
    But she still thought he was a complete shit for deserting his wife.
    No doubt, she thought as the kettle boiled, he’d found something younger, something less tarnished by the nagging drudgery of running a large house and bringing up a teenage boy mostly alone while he was living it up in London.
    They sat outside in the mid-morning sun, the tray set down on the white-painted iron table that she remembered her father sanding and lacquering every couple of years. It was clear to Lorraine that Jo had kept up their mother’s high standards around the place since she’d moved in five years ago. It looked as if she’d worked her fingers to the bone weeding and maintaining the acre of garden. It was immaculate, and the crammed-in shrubs and herbaceous plants were in full bloom. The thick scent of the overhead jasmine winding around the pergola and the nearby thicket of roses made Lorraine feel almost dizzy. She marvelled at the patchwork of coloured borders that she knew had taken years to mature.
    It was nothing like her modest, sun-deprived suburban patch that only ever got used a few times in the summer when they threw a last-minute barbecue for friends or work colleagues, or when she ducked outside for a sneaky cigarette, usually at the end of a long day during an investigation that didn’t allow for any kind of routine. She hadn’t done a scrap of gardening this year, and Adam had only cut the grass a handful of times.
    ‘You’re going to tell me it was an affair, aren’t you,’ she probed, but with a casual inflection so it didn’t sound as if she had an issue with the word. Jo wouldn’t respond to an inquisition.
    She thought she noticed a small nod.
    ‘You know, if dog-ends grew into flowers, mine would look way better than this,’ Lorraine said with a laugh, sweeping her hand out in front of her.
    ‘Yes,’ Jo said with a curt nod. ‘And I mean about the affair, not the