The Real Katie Lavender Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t his wife’s birthday, he knew that much. Gina’s fifty-sixth birthday had been last month and he’d taken her to Paris for the weekend. As for their wedding anniversary, he was off the hook there, as that had been a week after Gina’s birthday, when they’d celebrated thirty-four years of marriage.
    Thirty-four years, it didn’t seem possible. If they were both to be brutally honest, neither could say with a hand on their heart that it had been three and a half decades of wedded bliss, but they’d been happy enough. Wasn’t that all anyone could hope for? Especially in this day and age, when it was damn near a miracle to stay married to the same person this long.
    Confident that he hadn’t made an oversight regarding his wife, he turned his thoughts to his children, Rosco and Scarlet. Again he drew a blank. Rosco’s thirty-second birthday had been back in February and Scarlet’s had been in April, when on her twenty-ninth birthday she had announced she was pregnant.
    He smiled at the thought of Scarlet – from the way she was carrying on, you’d think she was the first woman to experience pregnancy. His mother had said much the same in private to him yesterday afternoon when he’d gone to help hang some pictures for her.
    When his mother had first mentioned that she thought it was time for her to move out of the house she had lived in for over half a century, Stirling had been surprised but hugely relieved. He and his brother had often talked about which of them was going to be brave enough to suggest to Cecily Nightingale – the archetypal matriarch – that it was time for her to live somewhere more manageable. Stirling had been all for her moving in with him and Gina at Willow Bank; they had plenty of room, after all, and who knew, that day may yet come to pass.
    For now, though, Cecily had swapped a rambling five-bedroom cottage with two acres for a two-bedroom second-floor flat that was part of an exclusive development of retirement homes. The glossy brochure that had sold her the idea of South Lodge had described the set-up as being ideal for those wanting their own luxury self-contained home but secure in the knowledge that support and care was available if required. South Lodge boasted several acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and a number of communal facilities; they included a library complete with computers, an indoor swimming pool and a croquet lawn. There was also a regular shuttle bus to and from the centre of Henley just two miles away.
    From the day she moved in, just before Easter, Cecily confessed that she wished she’d done it years ago. She had made plenty of friends with her neighbours – most of whom were younger than her, but all of whom were in the same boat, having reached an age when they wanted to take things a little easier, and most importantly didn’t want to be a nuisance to their families. Or as Cecily put it, she didn’t want her family to become a nuisance to her.
    Of all the important family dates Stirling had to remember, Cecily’s ninetieth birthday was the one there was absolutely no danger of forgetting. It was next Saturday and the celebrations, thanks to Gina, were all in hand. As was to be expected, Cecily had said she didn’t want any fuss, but she should know the family better than that; there wasn’t a chance in hell of letting such a momentous occasion slip by without a great fuss being made of her.
    He pulled into the car park of the modern three-storey office building that was home to Nightingale Ridgeway Investments and parked alongside his brother’s bright red Porsche. It was a family joke amongst the younger members, including Neil’s son, Lloyd, that he was too old for such a car, but let’s face it, the Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet was a beautiful piece of machinery, and why shouldn’t Neil have precisely what he wanted?
    It was as he was looking at Neil’s personalized number plate that something in Stirling’s head stirred. It