Stuart Pawson - Limestone Cowboy

"It's lightbulb glass," Dave declared, passing the piece back to me. "I'll tell you what's 'appened. They make this stuff by the ton, and have conveyor belts filled with it. A lightbulb above the conveyor has broken and fallen in the food. That's what 'appened. Nobody tried to poison your baby, Mrs Norcup."

Her face lightened, the crumpled brow smoothed out and she almost smiled. "You mean… you mean, it was an accident?"

"I'd say so."

"Oh, that is a relief. I'd never have slept again if I'd thought someone had tried to kill poor Rory. An accident! Oh, that's wonderful."

"Glad to be of assistance. Now, do you think I could use your toilet, please? I've drunk rather a lot of coffee this morning."

I took Mrs Norcup back into the other room and closed the door behind us while Dave went to the loo and had a wander round. "How do you get on with your neighbours?" I asked.

"I don't," she replied. "There's a white girl lives below who's on the game, a West Indian crack dealer above, Chinese on one side who have gambling parties that last for days and two Bosnian refugees on the other side. It's not a good place to bring up a child. We'll be out of here as soon as we can find somewhere else. Rory's dad said he'd try to help.

"It's like the United Nations." I heard the sound of flushing and the creak of floorboards. "Do you see Rory's dad very often?"

"Not really. He does his best, always sends Rory a present, but he works hard. He's on oilrigs."

I didn't know if they had oilrigs in Sheffield, and Rory hadn't seen a birthday or Christmas, yet, but I let it go. Dave came in and raised an eyebrow.

"We'll need a full statement from you, Mrs Norcup," he said. "I think you ought to come to the station with us."

Alarm flashed across her face. "But what about Rory?" she said. "I ought to be with him. He'll be missing me."

"Rory'll be fine. Do you have a coat?"

She produced a big blue and yellow anorak with Michigan in four-inch letters across the back. We locked the door behind us and led her down to the car. When I'd put her safely in the back seat Dave jerked his head at me and walked a few paces away from the car.

"There's glass fragments embedded in the kitchen worktop and glass in the rug," he told me. "We need a SOCO here, soon as possible."

I made the phone call and we took Mrs Norcup to Heckley nick. There was a good chance that she'd never see Rory again.

I was making a brew when Gilbert came in to ask about developments. He accepted the offer and I spooned Nescafe into a clean mug. Pete joined us, complaining about the roadworks that had sprung up on the bypass. I pushed the coffee jar his way and gave mine a vigorous stir.

"Why do they have to cone off half a mile of road when they're only working on about five yards of it?" he asked.

"They don't realise that the amount of delay is proportional to the length of time you slow the traffic for. There's a critical point when the traffic slows so much it becomes stationary."

"It's a conundrum, Peter," Gilbert told him. "Where's the sugar?"

"Write to the Gazette," I suggested. "It's in the Coffee Mate tin."

Pete handed out beer mats and we cleared spaces on desks in the big office to make room for our drinks. Maggie came in, asked if it was a private party and we told her to join us.

"So," Gilbert began. "What's the state of play with the lady you have downstairs?"

"According to the doc at the hospital she's a classic case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy," I replied. "I've invited the child protection unit to talk to her — it's a bit outside my experience."

Gilbert sipped his coffee and replaced it on the desk, adjusting the position of the beer mat until it was just right. "Dodgy jobs, these involving mothers and babies," he said. "One wrong step and we're accused of misogyny, or matricide or something. Be careful how you go with this one, Charlie."

"Matricide's killing your mother," Pete told us. "There was a bad case of MSBP reported in Norwich earlier this year. Mother of twins and they had about a hundred visits to hospital and operations and all sorts before she was found out. There's probably more of it about than we realise. Doctors are not as aware of it as they should be."

"Dave's at her flat right now," I told Gilbert, cutting off Pete before he could start telling us more about the Great Norwich Twins case. "He reckons there were fragments of glass on the worktop and on the rug in the kitchen. He has a SOCO with him. If they find any glass we should be able to match it with that from the tin of food."

"Good," Gilbert said. "Good. That's what we want — good, solid forensic evidence. So how does this fit in with the Grainger's job? Was that her handiwork, too?"

"I'm afraid not," I replied. "The two are unrelated."

"That's a shame. What's the state of play there?"

"We're struggling. There's been no new case reported for over a fortnight, so the scare may be over, But we're no nearer catching the culprit."

"Anybody in the frame?"

"Not really. Chief suspect is the wife of the warfarin victim, but it's a long shot."

Gilbert looked puzzled, then said: "Oh, I see. She poisoned her husband's pineapple and placed the other tins on the supermarket shelves to divert the blame elsewhere."

"That's right."

"There was a similar case in America a few years ago," Pete informed us. "Poisoned her husband with stuff you clean aquariums with after taking out a big insurance policy on him."

"Have another word with her, eh, Charlie," Gilbert said. "It's a high profile case with a lot of public interest. People in high places will start asking questions before too long so we need to draw a line under it as soon as possible."

"The wife works at the electronics factory," Pete added, "soldering components on printed circuit boards. One of the contaminated tins of pineapple had been soldered."

"There you go, then," Gilbert said. "You have a volunteer."

Gilbert stumped off back to his office and Pete found the file and swatted up on the warfarin victim. I indicated for Maggie to follow me and carried my coffee into my little office.

"You didn't sound convinced about the wife," Maggie stated as she manoeuvred the visitor's chair to a more favourable position.

"No," I replied as I hung my jacket behind the door, "but it gets Pete out of the way. There've been too many cases for it to be her. The crime is the poisoning of the tins, not the poisoning of Mr Johnson. It's either done for pure mischief or it's aimed at Grainger's. Enough of that, what was Tenerife really like?"

She laughed. "It was brilliant, Charlie, just brilliant. You'd love the place. OK, so it's a bit chicken-and-chipsy in some parts, but it's incredibly beautiful in others. And the weather is gorgeous. That's what you go for, isn't it?"

"It's been sunny here while you were gone. You missed the summer."

"So I've heard. Ah, well, you can't have everything. And what about you? How have you been, Charlie?"

"Pretty good. A couple of juicy cases to solve, with no personal involvement. Old-fashioned detective work, just like we joined for. I've been enjoying myself."

"And the love life?"

"Um, looking up, Maggie. Looking up."

The phonecall came about ten minutes later. "That's brilliant," I said. "Well done," and "Keep me informed."

I replaced the receiver. "She's coughed," I said. "Mrs Norcup has just confessed to poisoning her son with broken glass."

"Congratulations," Maggie said. "More brownie points for the department."

She went to tell Pete and make some more coffee while I rang Gilbert. It was a tidy conclusion to a difficult case, but we didn't rejoice or jump up and down with jubilation at a crime solved. It was a sad ending, and two lives would never be the same again. I stood looking out of the window at the traffic down below, marvelling at the way it kept going without all piling into each other. There were simple rules. That's why it kept moving, and in each vehicle was a driver with a pair of eyes and a brain and a desire to survive. So they obeyed the rules, or most of them, and everybody rubbed along.