Its warmth enfolded her, welcome after the cool afternoon air. ‘I’m home!’ she called. There were simultaneous responses from her eight-year-old daughter upstairs: ‘Down in a minute, Mummy!’ — and from her mother in the kitchen: ‘The kettle’s on.’ Nina smiled, propping her briefcase against the hall table. It was working well, this return to Shillingham. Her marriage breakdown a couple of years ago had coincided with her mother’s deteriorating health, and when her promotion came up it had seemed sensible to opt to move back here. It was to their mutual advantage; her mother had company, and there was someone in the house when Alice came home from school or when, as increasingly happened, Nina was called out at night. Also, now that the initial prickliness with the DCI had been smoothed over, she enjoyed her job: far more challenging in this busy division than it had been in sleepy Oxbury. She pushed open the kitchen door and her mother turned to greet her, teapot in hand.
