Read Limestone Cowboy for Free Online Page A

died without medical intervention ?”
    “No doubt about it.”
    “Right. Thanks for your help, Doc. What’s he called?”
    “Carl Johnson.”
     
    Mr Johnson was sitting up in bed, a drip in his arm supplying him with whatever he needed most. He was gaunt and swarthy, with a bony shoulder poking from the one-size-fits-all hospital pyjamas.
    “This is Inspector Priest and I’m DS Sparkington,” Dave told him, and the patient reached out with his free arm to shake hands. We found two chairs and sat down beside him.
    We asked him to tell us what happened and he started to relate all the gory details, but he had difficulty speaking so I decided that the abbreviated version would do. I poured him a beaker of water and said: “Have you been told what you were poisoned with?”
    “Thanks.” He took a sip, then: “Warfarin. Rat poison .”
    “But you’re not on warfarin tablets?”
    “No. It was her who did it, I’m sure of it.”
    “Your ex-wife?”
    “Estranged. We’re only separated.”
    “Why would she want to poison you?”
    “To get her hands on everything, that’s why.”
    “So you think it was an attempt to murder you, not just make you ill?”
    “’Course it was an attempt to murder me.”
    “Any ideas how you took the poison?”
    “No. Something I ate, I expect.”
    “What was your last meal?”
    “Curry. Chicken Madras.”
    “That would disguise the taste of the warfarin. Was it from a takeaway?”
    It was. He gave us his house keys and permission to scavenge in his rubbish bins. Dave made a note of his wife’s new address and the name of the suspect takeaway .
    “My money’s on Miss Ferodo,” he stated as we drove across town.
    “Nah,” I said. “Mine’s on the takeaway.”
    “How come?”
    “Sabotage. Local fish and chip shop fighting back, and fighting dirty.” Some cops deal with multi-billion frauds and drug cartels and barons of industry with their fingers in the pie, in Heckley we have takeaway wars.
    Johnson’s semi on the Barratt estate had all the hallmarks of a home where the woman has walked out: two days’ washing up in the sink; dirty towels over the radiator; windows that cut out the light and a smell of stale food permeating everywhere. Otherwise it was pleasant. The furniture was good quality and the decor was freshly applied. Too many ornaments, as usual, and a big wedding photograph standing on the widescreen TV.
    Why did he keep that? I wondered. A young versionof Carl Johnson stood proudly next to a bubbly blonde, a grey topper clutched in his hand. I picked up the remote control for the television and flicked round the channels. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Were there really, in homes all over the country, people sad enough to be watching that tripe? “Go for a walk!” I wanted to scream at them. “Read a book! Or just look at the sky and wonder at the clouds. Anything but watch this drivel.”
    “Bad news,” Dave announced as he came into the room. “His bin’s been emptied. Hey, I like this.”
    “When it’s widescreen,” I said, “is the picture just stretched or is there a bit extra stuck on each side?”
    “It’s stretched. Haven’t you seen football on one? The goals look about thirty feet wide.”
    “No.” I pressed the off button and the picture faded. “Let’s have a look in the kitchen, then.”
    The curry tray was in a bucket under the sink, with enough sauce left clinging to the edges for our highly-trained scientists to analyse. We placed it in a plastic bag and labelled it. Beneath the tray we found two empty Foster’s cans, so they went into bags, too, along with a mackerel in honey mustard tin and the remnants of a pizza.
    Inside the fridge part of his fridge-freezer there was a half-empty tin of Del Monte pineapple rings, my favourites. He hadn’t mentioned them but perhaps he’d had a pudding. Something sweet like that goes down well with ice cream after a hot curry. I placed it on the draining board next to the other