ON HIS WAY HOME, RAFFERTY stopped off at his Ma’s house. She welcomed him with as much hot sweet tea as he could drink. Settled comfortably in her over furnished living room, he made swift inroads into the ham sandwiches she also provided. Ma loved to feed people. Now she lived alone she had only herself to cater for; her other five children, like Rafferty himself, were all in relationships and had homes of their own.
Ma settled her rounded body back in her own well-worn tweed-effect armchair and, the requirements of hospitality over, she said, ‘I heard you’ve got a murder a couple of streets away. The whole neighbourhood’s agog.’
‘Thought it might be.’ Rafferty paused, then asked, ‘So who’s the favourite for the murder suspect?’ He didn’t usually go by local gossip in murder investigati
