22
When All Is Safely Gathered In…
The rest of the week consisted of preparations for the celebratory end of vintage feast down at the winery. I was so busy obeying orders, ferrying buyers of this and that hither and yon, directing delivery vans that had come up to the wrong place down to the right place, helping to haul deliveries that had been dumped in the wrong place down to the right place, answering phone calls from desperate would-be deliverers who’d failed to find any place let alone the right one, and hiring millions of wine glasses all of which would have to be accounted for after the occasion (and restraining myself from asking why the Hell they hadn’t plumped for disposable cups)—stuff like that—that I barely had a moment to myself let alone time to really investigate Crozier’s desk or talk to Gavin about the stable loft and/or his fall.
Most of the pickers had stayed on for the party, of course. They had their own dormitory accommodation, rather like the sort of thing decent trainers back home provide for their stable lads: a long, low block filled with bunks, with a good-sized bathroom and their own kitchen. In this case, the block was well insulated and air-conditioned: it certainly needed to be. Mike and Ben also had several permanent staff: they lived locally, a couple in our village, the others elsewhere in the hill settlements nearer to Adelaide. They and their families were there in full force, the wives bearing huge platters of this and that to supplement Miranda’s, Cassie’s and Stella’s giant efforts, and the kids all wildly excited. A field adjoining the cellar door was now covered by two giant marquees, cunningly laced together to form one super-giant, and a long canvas entrance tunnel led over there from the side entrance of the building—superfluously, one might have said, but apparently it was included in the price. At least it would afford Cassie, Stella, Miranda, her helper Mrs Johanssen, and the several local women who’d volunteered to lend a hand some shade as they carried relays of food in.
The immense wing-ding was timed to start at five, which might well have seemed potty in the hot weather, but of course a lot of people would have long drives home. One could only hope that they also had designated drivers. Well before the witching hour the cars started to arrive…
“My God. Do they invite everybody who comes to the cellar door?” I croaked to Chrsitina.
“More or less. People can put their names down for it, you see.”
“My God.”
“This’ll upset your budget projections nicely, Alex,” the old woman noted snidely.
I was reduced to looking at her limply.
“I suppose it’s claimable as a tax deduction,” she said dubiously. “Not if the ATO’s worked out how to put the kybosh on it, of course. –Have a belt,” she added kindly, gesturing with her glass.
I looked dubiously at it. “I thought that was water.”
“No. Gin,” she said succinctly.
“What?”
“This is the sort of Goddawful hooley that requires pre-fortification,” she explained.
“Yuh—er, yes, I can see that. Did you bring it?” I croaked.
“No, spirits are on offer at Miranda’s bar for selected guests. Open bar.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s not going to get better, is it?”
“No. They’re used to having old Jim Crozier toss largesse at them, you see.”
“Yes. Well, thanks for the suggestion, Christina, but as I haven’t got an iron head, I’ll refrain.”
She sipped placidly. “Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Oh—avoid anything with prawns in it.”
“In this weather?”
“Right,” she acknowledged. “Sudden death. Uh—and I think the local moos have stopped offering warmed-up roast chicken, there’ve been a lot of warnings on the TV news about that lately. But yeah, avoid anything that looks like reheated poultry, too, Alex.”
I nodded, my eyes bulging. “I shall. Thank you. That it?”
“Well, personally I wouldn’t touch anything that calls itself a vol-au-vent. Everything else should be cold, it’ll be fairly safe.”
After a moment I said: “Is this why Miranda’s got two giant fridges and the house has a second giant fridge in the garage?”
“Yep. And a second freezer, of course. –Stella came up in person to supervise the turkeys, did she?” she said to the sub-text.
“Yes. And the hams,” I sighed.
“Uh-huh. Preserved and cooked hams have to be peeled, slathered in muck and re-baked for hooleys, Alex, it’s a law. And then dotted with sixteen tins of pineapple pieces and innumerable horrifically expensive crystalized cherries that no-one except perhaps a few kids will eat.”
“Thank you for that, Miss Evans,” I sighed.
“You’re welcome.” She sipped gin placidly.
This conversation was taking place on Miranda’s patio in the shelter of the vines. I looked over at the canvas tunnel without enthusiasm. “I suppose I ought to…”
“They’ll be hurt if you don’t.”
Oh, God. “It is a far, far better thing…”
“Once more unto the breach,” she agreed.
“I already feel like one of the English dead, thanks.”
“You’ll feel worse by ten this evening: guaranteed. Go on.”
Awarding Miss Evans a look of loathing, I went.
… What can one say? The portable air conditioners that were supposed to be fanning cooled air through the marquees did their best, but with that crush failed dismally; although five thousand sets of plastic tables and chairs had been hired they weren’t enough; and every single Aussie present shouted at the top of his or her voice throughout the proceedings. I had been suckered into agreeing to make a short speech, so before the giant hillocks of cold turkey and ham were officially attacked Ben made his usual one and then introduced me. I said: “Welcome to Trethewin, everyone. Many thanks to all our workers and the gallant pickers who’ve helped get this year’s vintage in safely, and to all the kind people who’ve contributed to this celebratory occasion. Have a lovely time, everybody.” Hurriedly Ben proposed a toast to the winemaker and the vintage, Mike actually managing to smile, and everybody drank. Then the noise broke out again…
Christina was right, of course. By ten I felt and probably looked like a walking zombie. It really helped that I’d barely been able to get near Cassie all evening, she’d been so busy carting food in and serving food—it was supposed to be a buffet but they’d found it went better if people could be helped to the cold meats, cold quiches and so forth.
Poor Ken and his four assistants remained sober and on patrol, and I noticed that Perry wasn’t drinking and that he disappeared at intervals, but nothing untoward happened and by midnight the last stragglers had dragged themselves off. And we were left to contemplate the terrific mess.
“Tomorrow,” said Cassie, hugging my arm.
“Mm? Mm. Did anybody count how many bodies actually turned up?” I croaked.
“Of course not, don’t be silly. Come on, let’s get some rest.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “I suppose I can make it up that bloody drive.”
“No, I’ve brought the car down,” she said placidly.
“Bless you,” I croaked.
We undoubtedly got back to the house safely because I woke up in bed there next morning. That was, in my old bed in my old room. What?
Once I’d managed to shower, shave and dress I tottered down to the kitchen. Cassie was already up, making coffee.
“Thank God, real coffee,” I sighed, collapsing onto an un-re-cushioned chair. “I vote we ask this interior decorator chap to start in here, and get some soft cushions on these damned chairs. They’re distinctly un-ergonomic.”
“Have you got a hangover?” my beloved returned. “You look awful.”
“I feel awful, but no, I haven’t got a hangover, I feel as if I’ve been through a very warm, wet carwash backwards. Several times. It was like breathing soup in that bloody tent!”
“Yes. It’s all the exhaling.”
“Correct. And the body heat. Why was I banished to my old room last night?” I sighed.
“You’ve been complaining that my bed’s too narrow,” she reminded me. “And you obviously weren’t capable of anything, so I thought you’d be more comfortable.”
“Uh—oh. Very well, shopping list. Double bed. What’s the biggest size?”
“King-size, I s’pose. Well, that’s what they put in the ads for sheet sets, so it must be.”
“Okay. One of them.”
“Mm.” She lifted the lid of the coffee-pot cautiously but nothing had happened therein. “Blow.” She glanced uneasily at the door.
“Is your mum still asleep?” I said to the sub-text.
“Well, she was ten minutes ago,” she replied temperately.
“Uh-huh. Don’t drop anything, for God’s sake, I really need a belt of full-strength caffeine.”
“It’s almost ready.”
“Er… Cassie, has anyone ever calculated what these huge parties for the vendange cost?” I croaked.
“I don’t think so,” she said mildly.
“No.”
She gave a smothered giggle. “They could be a present from you! Use up some of that money of yours!”
“I really think they’ll have to be,” I admitted. “I mean, people were terribly good about bringing stuff, of course, but… I thought you were joking when you said you and Stella had pre-ordered six turkeys and hams.”
“No.”
“No. Darling, what did you pay for them with?”
She looked blank. “How do you mean?”
“Those gigantic birds and the hugest hindquarters that ever graced a stye. What paid for them?”
“The credit card, of course.”
Technically it wasn’t a credit card, it was a debit card, and in that case— I got up. “Excuse me.”
“Where are y—?”
I’d gone. I returned with my laptop and accessed the stables’ new bank account. Oh, yes. “Cassie, please come here.”
“What on earth are you up to?” she replied in tolerant tones, coming over with a big mug of strong café au lait.
I seized it gratefully but nonetheless nodded at the screen and said: “Look.”
“Um… Ye-es… That must be it, see? It’s that nice place in Norwood, they’re very good about letting you order well in advance. Of course they’re a bit pricey, but so reliable that it’s worth it for a special occasion.”
“Yes,” I said flatly. “Not that. This column. At the top.”
“Ye-es…”
“This is what is left in the stables’ account, which should never have been used in the first place for anything to do with the winery.”
“That can’t be right!”
“My darling, it is right. Unless you’re maintaining that the mighty machinery of the ANZ Bank has swung into action to defraud a small struggling training stables halfway to Outer Woop-Woop?”
“It’d be par for the course if they did,” she replied without noticeable rancour.
“Er—doubtless. Well, that’s the balance, that’s what’s left in the stables’ account.”
“Um, five dollars and twenty-four cents?—I dunno where the four came from, you can’t buy anything for six cents these days, they always round it off.—That can’t be right, surely, Alex!”
“I refer the lady to my earlier statement.”
“But—”
“Uh-huh.”
“I just did it automatically,” she said numbly.
“Darling, you can’t have, there are no sums like this going out to poulterers or butchers in the previous years’ accounts!”
“But— Oh.” She bit her lip. “We didn’t have the parties after Mr Crozier died, only Ben said that now… I’m awfully sorry, Alex. Now I come to think of it, Mr Crozier used to give Mum or me a special credit card. Um, I think Miranda had one, too.”
“All is strangely clear.” I sipped coffee, and sighed. “Wonderful coffee, darling.”
“Thanks,” she said wanly, trying to smile. “What are we gonna do, Alex?”
“I’m about to transfer that amount from my account into the stables’. And when you do this month’s accounts, please put down your payment to the poulterer as a loan to me for the winery, and my payment to you as a loan repayment, okay?”
“Um, yes, only there isn’t a category for that.”
“Then it will have to go in the sundries column.” I duly accessed my account—well, my Australian current account—and transferred the funds. “There.” I re-opened the stables’ account. “Just come and look, please.”
She was busy making toast. “Would you like marmalade or shall we have honey for a change?”
“Whichever you like. Come and look.”
“Yes,” she said, peering at the screen. “I see. –It’s not all that clear which are payments in and which are payments out, is it? You’d think they could colour-code them or something. Or put a minus in front of the payments out, that’d be good.”
“True.
“Um, is it gonna count as a gift from you?” she asked—belatedly, some would have said.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Quite.
“Um, it’s the winery’s one big do, you see,” she offered.
“I know.”
“Um, Miranda will’ve spent a lot, too.”
Out of the winery’s budget: quite.
“Never mind, I’ll sort it out. At least your financial year ends in June: there’s plenty of time.” She’d put both honey and marmalade on the table. Automatically I chose marmalade.
Cassie sat down, sighing. “It just never occurred to me… I suppose I was concentrating on getting the order right and all the other stuff to get ready for the party.”
“Mm, of course. Don’t worry about it, it’s all sorted.”
“Yeah, but I feel like an absolute nit!”
I didn’t point out that Stella had undoubtedly been right there at her elbow when they’d ordered the provender, I just said mildly: “Everybody makes mistakes. –Best get some caffeine down you while you can.”
“Ooh, yes!” Hurriedly she drank some. “You did want marmalade,” she spotted.
“Huh?”
“Marmalade. You did want it.”
“Er… I suppose I was on automatic mode. You’re not the only one!” I said with a laugh.
She smiled weakly. “No. Right.”
By the time the coffee was circulating nicely in our bloodstreams Stella was in the kitchen, but it was too late to do anything but look accusingly at the coffee-pot and inform her daughter that muesli would have been a better choice than white toast after all that rich food yesterday, Cassie, what were you thinking of?
“I like white toast,” I offered meekly.
She withered me with a look. “I dare say.”
Fred had surfaced in time to catch this last exchange. “That muesli muck’s like something you’d give to a horse, in fact I wouldn’t give it to a decent horse!”
“Nobody’s offering it to you. But you can have wholemeal toast this morning,” his helpmeet stated grimly.
He sighed, but sat down to tea and wholemeal toast. With Vegemite: he didn’t need anything sweet after all that rubbish he ate last night.
Unmoved, he returned: “What was that funny brown thing? Sort of like trifle only without jelly. Think there were a couple of them, actually.”
I got up hurriedly before the dread word could be uttered. “I’ll just put the laptop away.”
Unfortunately I hadn’t managed to close the door before she said it.
“Tiramisu.”
Gulp. So it had been. I draw a veil…
The next item on the agenda really did ought to be tackling Master Forrest about the stable loft and/or his fall before I forgot all about it. So I invited him into the study.
“Hey, Gran says that man, he can re-cover the La-Z-B—”
“Yes—well, replace its upholstery entirely, I think, but never mind that, Gavin. I wanted to ask you about the old stable loft. You know, where Andrews—Tony Brownloe—used to sleep.”
“It all burnt down,” he replied on what I fancied was an uneasy note.
“Mm. But I had the impression that you might have seen something up there that you were hesitating about mentioning. –You’re not in trouble, Gavin, I just need to know because it might be something that could help us track the ba— um, track him.”
“I getcha. Um, it was funny… I tole Gran, see, only she said I was making up silly stories!” he burst out.
Oh, Jesus. So he hadn’t told anyone else. “I see. So what was it?”
“It’s true, see!”
“Yes, of course, Gavin. Just tell me.”
“Um, there was another man there one day…”
“Yes?” I prompted, trying not to sound too eager.
He stuck his square chin out. “An’ he looked just like him, see, only old, an’ Gran, she said I was old enough not to tell fibs and she didn’t wanna hear no silly story, but it wasn’t!”
“No, of course not. That man would have been his father.” I bit my lip, recalling too late that more latterly the poor kid had had an all-too-close encounter with the bloody fellow.
“Um, yes.” Short silence. “Like, the man with the knife that you shot?”
“Mm. Don’t worry if you didn’t recognise him at the time, it all happened too fast.” I was about to add that nobody thinks straight when there’s a knife pointed at them, but stopped in time. We didn’t want more nightmares, healing “show and tells” at school with Perry, Fifi and Figgy or not.
“Yeah, you were real quick, Alex! Bang! Bang!” he beamed. “I never told nobody nothink,” he added quickly.
“No, I’m sure you haven’t, Gavin, thanks very much.”
“No worries! –Hey, we sure fooled that silly ole cop, eh?” he beamed.
“Er—mm. Well, it was in a good cause,” I said feebly.
“Yeah!”
“Mm. Now, tell me about the time you had your fall: when you had concussion,” I prompted.
“That was ages ago,” he said uneasily.
“Yes. You’re not in trouble, I was just wondering how it happened,”
“It was an accident.”
“Of course. Anyone can have an accident.”
“Um, yeah.”
I took a deep breath. “It was after the stables burned down, was it?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, scowling.
“Mm. You wanted to check them out, was that it?”
The floodgates opened. “Yeah, ’cos I thought what if that man, he’d been hiding, like maybe he was on the run or somethink, and what if he’d got all burnt up? See, me and Gramps, we seen this movie, it was cool, all about these firies, and this crook the cops were after, well he got all burnt up.”
“I see. Well, we know now that Andrews Senior didn’t get burnt up, more’s the pity.”
He gave a hoarse laugh, evidently finding this an excruciatingly witty sally. “Right! Yeah—no, I mean there was nothink up there. Just all black stuff.”
“Yes. Okay, thanks very much Gavin.”
He looked at me doubtfully and suddenly burst out: “Only I wasn’t supposed to go up there; you won’t tell anyone, will you, Alex?”
“No, of course not. It’ll be just between us chaps, okay?”
He beamed. “Okay!”
And that was that little mystery cleared up. Anticlimax. Though also a relief, really.
Gavin raced out and I looked without favour at Crozier’s hideous desk. “Okay, you’re next,” I muttered.
“Well,” I said, having pulled the study curtains back and opened the rather nice varnished wood Venetian blinds—the room’s best feature, “that’s it, in all its dreadful glory.”
Miss Evans recoiled. “God!”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“I’ve never really been in here before,” she said weakly. “Male sanctum.”
“Mm.”
“It always smelled of cigars, too…” she said in a vague voice, goggling as the slanted sunlight from the Venetians lit up the knights with their swords on the front of the thing. “Jesus. Uh—presumably the artistic carver didn’t realise that in the Middle Ages that style of knight, holding his longsword in front of him, was generally reserved for supine effigies on tombs?”
“Quite.”
“Well, I suppose you’d start by pulling and prodding at those extraneous, um, bosses and, um, lumps,” she offered weakly.
“Yes. I’ve tried the ones on the other side, within reaching distance, so to speak, of the sitter, but to no avail.”
“There’s the Chinese solution: sixteen separate and quite distinct small movements of adjoining puzzle pieces needed in order to—”
“It was made in Adelaide by a keen amateur carver in his sixties who’s long since passed on to that great woodworking shed in the sky.”
“Not a Chinese Australian?”
“Not unless Grant is a Chinese surname, no. And his first name was Logan.”
“Or an ex-expat from Hong Kong?”
“No. Added to which his many and varied carving offerings are scattered amongst his nearest and dearest and the members of his local bowling club. Horribly twisted and carved walking sticks in the main, though a lucky sister scored a similar desk on the occasion of her sixtieth. It came to her daughter, who’s keeping it for sentimental reasons, but as it clashed with everything in the house it’s been assigned to her teenage son’s room, where it’s pushed firmly against the wall and laden with his electronic gear. Jim Hawkes has emailed me the full report: his investigator claimed it was too heavy to move and the son in question—”
“Enough, already!” she groaned, holding her head.
Inexorably I continued: “The son in question said he’d pay him to take it away.”
“One admits the soft impeachment,” she said weakly.
“Uh-huh,” I agreed. “There was no hint of anything like secret drawers from any of the recipients of the man’s work, though as I hadn’t passed on that titbit to Jim his people didn’t ask direct questions. But I’m sure if there had been someone would have burst out with it.”
“Maybe. Not if the drawer in question had held something highly illegal.”
“Er—that’s a point. But in any case, there it is.”
“Sorry, Alex, memory not jogged,” she said on a very dry note.
“Er—no. I beg your pardon, Christina,” I replied lamely.
“Not at all. –My solution’d be to dismember the thing, preferably with an axe. That’d work, provided the treasure trove wasn’t a piece of Lalique glass or some such.”
“That sort of thing isn’t worth squirreling away,” I sighed.
“True.” She went round the desk, sat down and began fiddling with the carved excrescences on that side. I came round to watch.
She pressed, pulled, and pushed from several directions at anything that stuck out, but nothing happened.
“Possibly it’s something simpler: merely slapping a flat piece of panelling, for instance,” she said eventually.
“Find a flat piece,” I sighed.
“I see what you mean.” She bent to her left and peered hard. Then she bent to her right, and peered in that direction. Finally she said: “Have you checked the depth of these bottom drawers?”
“The depth? No.”
“My arms aren’t quite long enough to reach, but Jim’s would have been. Try pulling them right out.”
“I don’t think they’ll come, they’ve got some sort of stop in them.” I bent down and tugged. They did have.
“Got a ruler?” the old woman asked.
“No: the desk was emptied out before I moved in.”
“Then try measuring the depth with your hand.”
I obeyed. The drawer on our right was about two inches deeper than the length of my hand. The lefthand drawer was only just a hand deep. From the outside, however, they looked exactly the same size.
“I’d say that’s it,” said Christina without emotion.
“Mm.” I felt underneath the shallower one. My hand met smooth wood. “Well, either the woodworker decided to make this one shallower for reasons of his own or this is a secret drawer,” I admitted, sliding my hand over its surface. “It’s completely smooth, though: nothing to grasp.”
“Try getting your fingers underneath it and pulling—sideways.”
Refraining from saying that’d be far too easy, I obeyed.
“Good Christ!” The thing had slid easily. I damn nearly overbalanced.
“Bingo!” she said, grinning.
I took a deep breath. “If you now dare to tell me you knew about this all along—”
“No! Don’t be a birk!”
I stopped being a birk, drew the secret drawer right out, and looked at the contents. It wasn’t a fortune in gold and it wasn’t Lalique glass or anything like it, in fact the drawer wasn’t nearly deep or wide enough to hold much. Just a document. Typewritten.
“Read it before the frustration kills me!” she cried.
Numbly I said: “I am.”
“Well?”
Mutely I held it up. The top sheet was signed and dated; and witnessed by two people.
“Cripes, it’s not a new will, is it?” she croaked, peering.
“No. Read it.”
She grabbed it eagerly and read it. “Bugger me,” she said numbly. She turned to the attached pages: a long list of names and dates. “Well, when Jim did anything he did it thoroughly,” she admitted.
“Yeah.”
“Judging by the date he must have got the bastard to sign it not long after he bought that fake Munnings that was in the passage.”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed.
We looked at each other somewhat weakly. After a moment Christina said: “I suppose bloody Harry Andrews didn’t tell his son about it until after the house was sold. That’d explain the house fire and the attempt to create a diversion by blowing up poor old Mike’s cooling tank.”
Well, that and natural spite. “Mm,” I agreed.
“You know,” she said on a dubious note, looking at the list again, “he has served his time for art forgery.”
“Yes, but the guilty flee where no man pursues. Besides, it would depend on the terms of the indictment, wouldn’t it? I imagine it was several counts that they could prove. I doubt very much that it would have been all of the works on this list, by any means.”
“No…” She read carefully through the first page of the list and turned over. She gave an explosive snort of laughter. “Jesus!” She turned over again, and choked.
“What?” I asked eagerly.
“Boy, when he conned ’em he did a proper job! There’s two very wealthy industrialists listed here, three huge corporations—big buyers of art, wealthy companies are, though a lot of them prefer modern stuff—a former premier of SA, an eminent judge, now passed on, sadly, and—wait for it—your mate Zeff’s dad!”
“What?” I grabbed the document back. “By God!”
Christina’s shoulders began to shake. “What’s more,” she gasped: “it’s the painting Zeff Junior donated to the Art Gallery amidst a blaze of glory, pats on the back, huge tax breaks and mutual congratulations only a few years back!”
I gulped. The document was, of course, Andrews Senior’s signed confession to art forgery plus a dated list of the art works he’d sold together with the names of the buyers.
Zeff Senior’s purchase was a so-called Hans Heysen: Old River Red Gum, Trethewin Creek, Adelaide Hills.
“There are not now, and never have been,” said the old woman with horrible detachment, “any river red gums anywhere near Trethewin Creek.”
Our eyes met, and we both broke down in helpless sniggers.
Inspector Wilson had accepted the confession and the list with a sort of grudging gratitude that managed to imply that members of the public had no business presenting the police with evidence of crimes, and everything was hunky-dory at Trethewin for almost a whole day. The final tidy-up at the winery was almost complete, a fence had been mended (literally: a delivery truck had backed into it), and the new wine was nestling snugly in its vats. And Mike had almost recovered from the discovery of a flock of parakeets amongst the vines—now practically denuded, true, but that didn’t seem to make it better. A pretty sight? Are you barmy, Alex? They’re ruddy pests! Okay, rather like bloody Anson/Andrews, I concluded silently: pretty but deadly.
I shouldn’t have joked about him, even to myself. Because shortly thereafter Perry, Ben, Mike and a sweating gentleman in grimy blueish overalls turned up at the house with the bad news. The solid overalled character, whom I had met before, was one, Bazza Naismith, the first name not being a joke, no, but a genuine Australian nickname for Barry. He was the technician who was in charge of the mechanical aspects of the bottling shed: not a manager, but a genius with machinery with apparently a complete understanding of the mysterious ways of pumps. He didn’t have an engineering degree but according to Ben and Mike we didn’t need one of those jokers. He did have some sort of technical qualification done way, way back—he was well into his fifties—and he was a local, his father, uncle and older brother before him having also been employed in various capacities on the estate.
I was in the study, seated at the excrescence, trying to sort out Miranda’s paperwork—that was, determine which of her latest payments had been for the party. Hurriedly I turned the sheets upside-down.
“Something wrong? You’re not bottling yet, are you, Mike?”
“What? No, ’course not!” replied the winemaker.
“Um, not this year’s, yet, Alex,” added Ben miserably.
“Okay, so what’s up?”
What was up was grit in some intricate part of Bazza’s machinery which had buggered up the— Jesus.
“Sabotage?” I asked tightly.
“Gotta be,” Ben admitted glumly.
“Well, it didn’t bloody get in there by itself!” Bazza put in angrily.
“Was it Andrews?” I asked baldly.
The others looked at Perry.
Grimly he replied: “Fifi’s had a good sniff round down there and didn’t signal. On the other hand there’s a stink of aniseed.”
“Yeah, revolting,” Bazza agreed. “Spotted it the other day but I didn’t make nothink of it, we weren’t running, ya see.”
“Him and his blokes have been helping with the clean-up,” Ben added.
“Yes, of course. –So we conclude it was bloody Andrews and he covered his tracks with an aniseed spray?” I said sourly.
“Yeah,” they all agreed glumly.
“Musta kind of blended in with the crowd; I mean, what with all the cars and everybody milling around…” Ben’s voice trailed off and he looked at me miserably.
After a moment Mike volunteered: “We wouldn’t have thought the bugger had enough nous to even know where to start down at the plant.”
“No, well, split milk,” I said heavily. “We just can’t guard everything and everybody every minute of the day and night, it’s nobody’s fault.”
“It was all locked up,” said Bazza. “I checked everything meself.”
“I’m sure you did, Bazza. Like I say, it’s nobody’s fault. How long will it take to get everything running again?”
He scratched his head. “I’m gonna have to strip it down… Look, to be on the safe side, Alex, I think I better check out the whole plant. No knowing what else ’e coulda done. I couldn’t see anythink, but shit! We’re gonna have to flush out all the tanks and pipes.”
“Yes, that would be sensible. No broken bottles, anything like that?”
He shook his head.
“No obvious damage at all,” said Perry. “I rather think that’s the point: he wanted us to start up and foul up the whole system.”
“Mm. Uh—look, Bazza, I did a mechanical engineering degree, way back when. I admit the only thing I’ve done with it since my twenties is strip down my little Cessna’s engine, and I’ve only the haziest recollection of the principles of pumps, but I could at least take a look at the motors and the generator, if you like.”
He brightened. “Really? Great, that’d help!”
So we adjourned to the bottling shed…
The first thing I discovered was that a crucial electrical cord on the main motor had been cut almost through. Bazza stared at it in horror. “Fuck!”
That put it well.
“Mm,” I agreed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m imagining a combination of a wine flood and those bloody live wires.”
“You said it, mate! Either that or it coulda set the whole place on fire.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Or simply killed someone,” he ended limply.
“Yes. I know you and Ben don’t like the idea of the publicity, Bazza, but I’m going to have to phone the cops, I can’t let this slide.”
“Yeah,” he agreed numbly. “It won’t do no good, but yeah, ya better.”
So I rang Wison yet again. Funnily enough his reaction was that we should never have had the bloody party, what did we expect? He’d send someone up.
We didn’t wait for the someone, none of us imagined for a moment that Andrews would have left fingerprints or any other incriminating evidence. We just got on with it.
Ben wasn’t mechanically minded at all, and Mike, though he understood the working of the plant, wasn’t either, so they weren’t able to help, and went off to other jobs. As they weren’t bottling today only Bazza’s maintenance guy, Jacko Young, was on deck, a scrawny, taciturn man of about fifty, very tanned in spite of his indoor occupation. Unqualified, but a reliable worker and knew the plant backwards—in fact, he was the first to spot a tiny hole in one of the big flexible hoses. After that he voluntarily went over the lot, crawling on hands and knees or climbing ladders when necessary.
The generator that powered the whole plant was okay, thank God, and so was the main motor itself, but that heavy-duty flex was going to have to be replaced, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that the average domestic electrician kept in his toolbox. The nearest supplier was in Adelaide. Grimly Bazza rang to make sure they had it in stock, which they did, and set off for town…
It eventually emerged that the bloody man had sabotaged the two pumps that variously transferred the wine from the vats to Bazza’s feeder tanks and thence to the bottling machinery proper, attacked the conveyor belt that held the full bottles—frayed almost through so as to cause the most damage possible when it gave way—and punctured a total of three large flexible pipes into the bargain. The wine came through at considerable pressure so if the pipes didn’t actually rupture, quite possibly seriously injuring any nearby staff, the shed would very soon have been flooded with wine. Charming.
I looked at my watch. Three-thirty. And the bad news had reached me just after eight-thirty.
“I think that’s it,” I said, wiping a greasy, grimy hand across my forehead. “Nothing more we can do.”
“Yeah,” Perry agreed. “As far I can tell all the stopcocks are working fine. And Jacko and I have checked the tops of all the big tanks just in case the bastard mighta had a bright idea about them, but they’re okay.”
“And the underneaths,” Jacko agreed.
“Good,” I said. “Well, I vote for food and beer, not necessarily in that order.”
“Right,” Perry agreed.
Jacko hesitated. “Yeah, but—”
“What?” I asked.
“Well, um, will the dames mind?” he croaked.
“Mind?” I said in bewilderment.
Perry grinned. “Mind us walking in covered in muck demanding food and beer, mate! I can guarantee Junie won’t!”
“Oh! No, Cassie won’t either, Jacko, it’s okay!” I assured him.
“Yeah, but… Her mum isn’t still here, is she?” he hissed.
“Not precisely. She and Fred were due to head back to the city this morning, but she discovered that our fridge needs restocking, so they’ve gone back down, the plan being to get to the market very early tomorrow morning and then bring the stuff up.”
Perry clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. “So you’re safe, mate! Come on!”
And we crammed into his ute and headed for the kitchen, a minimal amount of handwashing, and a giant feast of bangers and beer. The special Australian technique being to wrap the hot “snag” in a nice soft slice of white bread and anoint it with tomato sauce, there being two schools of thought on this last: either squeeze out a line of sauce along the length of the sausage from the nozzle of the squeeze-bottle—them ordinary bottles were no good, mate—and then roll the result in the bread, or anoint it at the end, when rolled. Rather fortunately Trethewin’s pantry did include a couple of squeeze-bottles of sauce.
It was Junie who smilingly officiated, Cassie having driven in to collect Gavin and Tanya from school. Returning, very luckily, in time to allow them to share the feast. Well, Gavin more than played his part, but dear little Tanya only managed half a sausage.
… “All the same,” Cassie concluded when the kids were safely settled in front of the TV and we were sipping a last beer round the kitchen table, “it’s not funny.”
“Nah,” Jacko agreed. “Someone coulda been killed by them bloody exposed wires.”
She nodded. “And the whole bottling process could have been ruined.”
“Yeah. Well, the wine would’ve been okay in the vats,” said Perry, “but anything that had got into the pipes and the feeder tanks would have had to be junked.”
“Yeah,” Jacko agreed.
I sighed. “I don’t see what else we can do, short of hiring an army to police every inch of the place.”
“Talking of which,” said Junie, “what time was it when you rang that silly man, Alex?”
“Er… No idea, I’m afraid, Junie. A while back.”
“And nobody’s turned up! Typical!” she cried.
We were all agreeing it was typical when the back door opened and Pete’s voice said: “They’ll probably be in here, mate. Go on in.”
And the burly Sergeant Donoghue entered, looking sheepish.
Pete followed him, a very dry expression on his thin, tanned face. “Found this down the bottom of the drive looking for you, Alex. More trouble at the winery, is it?”
“Yeah gidday,” the local segreant muttered. “Um, I was over in Balhannah, they had a break-in at the deli. Teenagers, I think. Sorry. Um, Inspector Wilson asked me to look in on you. Sabotage, was it?”
Swiftly Perry retorted: “It was, mate, yeah, but given that the winery blokes need their bottling plant to be functional, we didn’t wait for you. No bombs this time. The plant’s out of action—unless you can supply an infallible patch for a ten-centimetre heavy-duty flexible plastic pipe that won’t burst under enough pressure to fell an ox?”
“Um, no,” he said numbly.
“It’s going to cost a fortune to replace those pipes,” put in Junie tartly, “so you’d better make a note of it, because Alex is going to have to claim it on his insurance!”
“Yeah, and for that heavy-duty flex,” added Jacko hoarsely.
“Uh—yeah,” said the sergeant feebly, producing his notebook. “Gidday, Jacko. Yeah. Um, I better take a look, then. Um, so where’s your mate Bazza?”
This question was apparently addressed to Jacko: he replied sourly: “‘E’s gone in to town to buy a replacement for that heavy-duty flex, like what ya not gonna find at Mitre 10, geddit? And the pipes are gonna have to be ordered from the suppliers, and they’re not down the road, neither!”
Oh, dear: they were all glaring at the unfortunate man!
“Yes, well, we can’t do anything today, can we?” I said peaceably. “So there’s no hurry. Perhaps you’d like a cold drink, Sergeant Donoghue? You look hot and it must be well up in the thirties today.”
“Thirdy-six, I think. I wouldn’t mind a drink of water, thanks,” he admitted.
They were all still glaring, so I got up and fetched him a bottle of spring water from the fridge.
“Thanks,” he said with a sigh. He downed it thirstily. “When did it happen, do ya reckon?”
Silence.
Finally Perry said: “Look, we’re all agreed that we should never have let the winery people have their bloody party, but it’s something they look forward to all year.”
“Yes,” I agreed quickly, “so we let them go ahead. Andrews must have sneaked in amongst the crowd. The dogs didn’t sniff him out—well, there were far too many people there to single out one scent; and down at the bottling plant he seems to have sprayed aniseed spray around.”
“Eh?”
“It puts the dogs off the scent. Too strong, it’s all they can smell,” said Perry heavily.
“Aw. Right. Well, maybe we can track down where he got it from but I dunno that it’ll lead us to ’im… I better take a look down there, Mr Cartwright,” he said on an apologetic note.
“Yes, of course,” I agreed. “Come along, then.”
That took care of the remainder of the afternoon. And that was pretty much that.
As Perry was to conclude that evening, what the Hell more could we do?
Er… an electrified fence around the entire winery complex? The answer to that one was, They wouldn’t let ya put up anything stronger than something that’d stop yer average cow, mate.
Quite. Well, I’d install a proper electronic security system, with alarms—very loud ones—but…
Quite.
Next chapter:
https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-only-good-snake-is-dead-snake.html
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