DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Joseph Rafferty stretched languorously before the living room fire, looked through the upmarket gift catalogue that his sister Maggie had given him and tried to put his mind to coming up with some ideas as to what they could buy his Ma for the triple celebration: it would have been his late and favourite gran’s ninetieth birthday and was the thirtieth anniversary of his father’s death as well as what would have been his seventieth birthday.
Strange to die on your birthday. His father had died because he’d celebrated too well the night before his birthday and had got careless on the scaffolding on the actual day. But at least he was in good company. Wasn’t it Shakespeare who had died on his birthday? Llewellyn would know.
He lifted his glass and took a contemplative si
