Josephine looked at her mother, and felt the urge to slap her face. She knew what she was insinuating, and this wasn’t the first time she had tried to bring this conversation up. Josephine stood suddenly. They were, as always, in her kitchen. She had made them both a lovely lunch, and she had tried to pretend that she was enjoying it. But she wasn’t. Her mother had been a pain in her arse for a long time now. Well, she was fed up. She couldn’t allow her mother to get away with this, not again. ‘Just what are you trying to say, Mum?’

Lana could see the bristling anger that her words had caused. It just added fuel to her belief that Michael Flynn had been behind Patrick Costello’s death. Everyone thought that, except this daughter of hers.

‘I’m not trying to say anything, love. I am just telling you what people are whispering.’

Josephine gave a deep low chuckle as if she was really tickled about something. ‘Do you know something, Mum? I couldn’t give a flying fuck about what “people” are saying. What I do know is my Michael had better not hear it. He wouldn’t like to think that “people” are accusing him of murder, because that is what you’re trying to say, isn’t it? At least that’s what you seem to be insinuating anyway.’

It finally dawned on Lana that her daughter would stand by her husband no matter what, even knowing what her husband was capable of. It didn’t bother her at all. ‘I never said anything of the kind.’

Josephine flapped her hands in front of her mother’s face. ‘Oh, Mum, will you stop it! It’s all you go on about. Now, I am telling you for the last time, any more of this and I will aim you out the door. I mean it.’

Lana knew that her daughter was more than capable of doing just that. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, Josephine.’

Josephine looked at Lana, so upset at her mother’s words that she was nearly in tears. ‘But you do hurt me, Mum, you know you do. Every time that you try to say something bad about Michael, you hurt me. I can’t do this any more, Mum. It has to stop. What you don’t seem to understand is that I don’t care what he might have done. I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks. I love him, and he loves me. Nothing else matters.’

Lana was heart-sorry to see her only child so distressed. If only she would see Michael as he truly was. But that wasn’t ever going to happen, she knew that now. Even if Josephine did know the whole truth about her husband, she wouldn’t care – she had just admitted that.