Just at that moment, Gary arrived. Rebecca knew he was close by but was still amazed he arrived so quickly. She saw Gary look at Walter’s hand on her arm and then look across to Bruce Wells slumped in a chair on the pavement.
‘So what’s happening, Ms Keith?’ he said formally.
‘I wanted to tell you on the phone, but you had hung up,’ said Rebecca, prising her arm from Walter’s grasp. She spoke as if Bruce was beyond hearing. ‘This is Pixie’s stalker, Bruce Wells.’
‘I know who he is, Ms Keith,’ said Gary.
‘Well, he’s obviously drunk.’ She gestured to the pub on the corner, across the road. ‘He’s had a skinful. He’s been yelling out that Pixie deserved to die and that she was a slut. He’s upset that she wouldn’t sleep with him, despite all the presents he gave her,’ said Rebecca before making a face and whispering, ‘including underwear.’
Bruce lunged at Rebecca, but Rebecca was faster, quickly leaping sideways to avoid his grip.
‘That’s my girl! Great move!’ yelled Lisa. ‘She was a state netballer, you know,’ Lisa said proudly to the crowd.
Penny sighed.
Bruce stumbled and fell to the pavement. ‘You bitch. You were part of the conspiracy to keep Pixie from winning the tournament,’ he yelled.
‘You poor bastard,’ Rebecca said dismissively as Gary grabbed Bruce by both shoulders and hurled him to his feet.
A police car pulled up adjacent to the tables. Gary looked surprised.
‘The Bar Torino management called the police,’ explained Rebecca.
‘Okay, I’ll take it from here. You get back to your friend,’ he said, looking over at Walter.
Rebecca wanted to take Gary aside, but he was already instructing the uniformed officers to take Bruce to the police cells for sobering up and further questioning. She would have to call him later.
Seppeltsfield,
Barossa Valley
It was a perfect Adelaide summer morning. Rebecca looked across at the little silver carriage clock on her bedside table. There was just enough early morning light creeping through the white shutters for her to see the clock face. It was nearly six. She rolled out of bed and stomped over to the French doors. Her ankles were stiff as boards first thing in the morning. She was sure the stiffness was a result of playing netball on asphalt since her childhood. She also knew the stiffness was only going to get worse as the years passed.
Rebecca could hear the morning bird chorus even before she opened the doors. The wisteria vine on the pergola was still in leaf. The vine’s spring display of pendulous purple blooms had long disappeared, with the remaining lacy green leaves giving a dappled shade over the sandstone pavers. And while the heady scent had all but gone, the compact green leaves of jasmine spilled down the brush fence, transforming it into a thick hedge. Crimson Madagascar periwinkles and white mandevillas spilled from large terracotta pots, and the shiny green leaves of orange and lemon trees sat on either side of a bronze-leafed magnolia tree, heavily laden with large cream flowers. It was already warm, and Rebecca felt perfectly comfortable in her cotton nightie. There was no need for a dressing gown. The coolness of the stone on her bare feet was pleasant but she could sense that the day would warm up quickly. By midmorning, the stone would be too hot to walk on in bare feet.
‘Definitely a morning for coffee in the courtyard,’ she said to herself as she padded her way to the kitchen and turned on the espresso machine.
Sitting under the shade of the wisteria vine in her favourite wicker chair, Rebecca rested her coffee on the small marble-topped table nearby and opened her tablet. She clicked on the Advertiser app and read her front-page story on Pixie. The photo of the red body bag lying on the fairway took pride of place. Rebecca was pleased with her story but knew she had to do a lot more sleuthing and checking to advance it. She ran through a mental checklist of the obvious angles: the possible triad connection; Bruce Wells, the stalker; mad Matilda Lambert who loathed Pixie; and Pixie’s manager, Sol Semler, who she just didn’t trust.
Rebecca’s mobile rang.
‘Good morning, Reggie,’ she said playfully.
Reg grunted. ‘So what angle are you working on now, and when can I expect to see more copy?’ asked Reg bluntly.
‘Good to speak with you, too,’ said Rebecca. ‘Being Saturday, I’m actually going to lunch today. I’m lunching with Sue Barker, one of the pro-golfers, and Keiko Takahashi, an executive with the sponsors of the tournament. I’ve been planning to do a feature on Fino’s in the Barossa for Taste, but now I can combine my Taste duties with some murder sleuthing.’ Rebecca saw no reason to add that her buddies Penny Tavanagh and Lisa Harrup were tagging along too. ‘I’ll get some insights from Keiko about the women’s golfing world. You never know what leads I might get.’
‘Doesn’t sound like a strong lead to me. Sounds more like an excuse for a pig-out and a piss-up. What about this Chinese writing angle and my colour piece? Where are you up to with that?’
‘Chin Wang says the writing refers to a Chinese triad called the White Lotus Society. I’m meeting a contact with triad knowledge at the Chinese New Year on Gouger Street tomorrow night. I hope to get something from that. Until then, I haven’t got enough to write a credible angle on any triad involvement.’
‘Jesus, Rebecca. That’s a major angle, and I need something fresh today. Are you sure you can’t use the triad angle as a speculation piece?’
‘No, Reg. I don’t have enough yet. And it would be too dangerous to go with it without more evidence. But I think I might have something else for you. Last night I witnessed an interesting display from Pixie’s stalker, Bruce Wells. I could write up a piece on that,’ teased Rebecca.
‘What happened?’
‘I ran into Bruce outside Bar Torino. He was drunk and spewing out vitriol about Pixie, as well as spewing physically.’
‘What sort of vitriol?’
‘Called her a slut. Said she did it with anything that moved—but not him. Said she deserved to die. And he tried to have a physical go at me as well.’
‘Okay I want that angle and the triad angle,’ said Reg.
‘I could spin the Bruce Wells angle out into a feature article. And aren’t you going to ask if Wells hurt me?’
‘If he hurt you, you would’ve told me. So don’t play for sympathy when you don’t deserve it. Now about this story on the stalker, let’s see you do it. Lunch or no lunch, I want copy from you by four o’clock this afternoon. Got it?’ said Reg crustily.
‘Yeah. Okay. Got it. Do you mind if I go now? I need to do some work.’
She liked Reg and rarely took offence at his gruffness. He was damn good at his job and she liked the fact that he demanded results. She got a buzz out of delivering.
A couple of hours later, Rebecca closed her tablet. She wasn’t quite finished, but she needed to get ready and pick up Penny and Lisa. She could finish the article after lunch and still meet Reg’s deadline.
Now to get ready, she thought. It was going to be warm in the Barossa Valley. After showering, she opened her wardrobe and scanned it. She pulled out a pink-and-green floral chiffon dress lined with a green-silk slip. It screamed summer. She would normally match the dress with sandals, but she wanted to add a country element, so she reached to the back of the wardrobe and pulled out some mid-calf cowboy boots that she had picked up on a trip to Texas a few years ago. They were camel coloured with white stitching and diamante stones set in a loop near the top of the boot. The boots would be hotter than sandals, but she was willing to suffer the discomfort for fashion. She left her blond hair down, using hot rollers to give it extra bounce. After applying light make-up, including mauve lipstick, and putting on her fifties retro tortoiseshell sunglasses, she was ready.
Rebecca pulled up outside Penny’s Victorian bluestone villa in the salubrious plane-tree-lined suburb of St Peter’s. Penny was already waiting, sitting in a cane chair on the tessellated-tile verandah behind a box hedge. On seeing Rebecca, she jump
ed up and quickly made her way down the path, clutching her pink tote. She was wearing white stove-pipe jeans, a thigh-length turquoise caftan, and large-framed black sunglasses.
‘You look gorgy,’ said Rebecca as Penny hopped into the front passenger seat.
‘So do you, glamour gal. Very country chic,’ said Penny as she looked admiringly at Rebecca’s outfit. ‘What a great day for a drive to the Barossa and lunch at Fino’s.’
‘Yep, we’re pretty fortunate,’ said Rebecca, who still found it hard to completely relax at fancy restaurants. She’d tried to analyse her thinking many times, and the best she could come up with was that she grew up in a household that could never afford fancy restaurants. It was decadent and wasteful to spend the equivalent to a family’s weekly grocery shopping bill on one meal. But she knew the guilt would quickly dissolve as soon as the first glass of bubbly and amuse-bouche touched her mauve lips.
They pulled into the driveway of Lisa’s modest weatherboard home at Klemzig.
‘Wait here, Penny. I’ll go to the door.’
‘Happy to,’ said Penny as she checked Instagram on her phone.
Rebecca made her way up the hand-laid cement driveway lined with purple-headed agapanthus. Just as she was about to knock, Lisa opened the screen door.
‘G’day, Bec,’ said Lisa. ‘I’ll be with you in a jiffy. I just need to lock the back door.’
Rebecca stepped inside and glanced around the familiar room. It was incredibly neat. The front door opened straight into the lounge. The floorboards were bare and had been stained a distressed white. The walls were also white. A camel-coloured mid-century-modern leather lounge suite was just the right size for the small room. Lisa had installed the white DIY plantation shutters on the room’s two windows herself. A big bunch of purple-headed agapanthus, presumably picked from the front yard, sat in a large glass vase on the coffee table and gave the room a pop of colour. Rebecca admired how Lisa decorated on a modest budget.
‘Okay, I’m ready now,’ said Lisa as she picked up her non-designer brown handbag.
‘You look lovely, Lisa.’
‘Oh, this old thing? I picked it up at the Magill Road op shop,’ Lisa said nonchalantly.
She was wearing a khaki-coloured safari dress accessorised with a wide deep-brown leather belt, tan-coloured leopard print scarf, and leather sandals.
‘Wow, Lisa. Great outfit,’ said Penny as Lisa hopped into the back seat of Rebecca’s car.
‘Thanks, Penny. You look lovely too,’ said Lisa.
Rebecca gave a sigh of relief. They were going to play nice today.
‘So,’ said Penny. ‘I know Sue Barker is at this lunch, but who’s the other woman?’
‘It’s Keiko Takahashi. She’s a Japanese official from the major sponsor of the Women’s Open, ISPS Handa. She’s blind. The chairman of ISPS, Mr Handa, founded the first blind golf club and helped create the International Blind Golf Association. They’re also big sponsors of the blind and disabled golf in the Paralympics. And they’re great sponsors of women’s golf—all the tournaments that the major corporations don’t tend to support.’
‘Really? Blind golf? How in the hell can you play golf when you’re blind?’ exclaimed Lisa.
‘Their caddies are their eyes,’ said Penny. ‘The caddies line the golfer up square to the target, line up the clubface, and tell the golfer how far to hit the ball so they can adjust their swing arc. But it is still amazing.’
‘Yes. It’s inspirational. Keiko Takahashi is a blind golfer but also a senior executive in ISPS Handa and a very clever lady,’ said Rebecca.
They decided to drive the scenic seventy-kilometre route to the Barossa, via northeast road, through Chain of Ponds and Williamstown. They wound their way along the snakelike Adelaide Hills roads, passing through bushland, vineyards, and grazing country. Apart from the green vines, the landscape was tinder dry. The harsh sun created a shimmering glare, distorting the golden grasses and washed-out sky. It’s like looking through a wine bottle, thought Rebecca. Towering gums lined the verge and fence lines as well as being dotted across the valleys. She wasn’t surprised that cattle sheltering from the hot sun under river red gums resembled a Hans Heysen painting. After all, this was Hans Heysen country.
Rebecca drove through the township of Lyndoch and into the Barossa Valley proper.
‘God, this place is so neat,’ said Penny. ‘You’ve got to give it to those Germans.’
‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ said Rebecca. She mentally listed some of the things that defined the Barossa: Line after line of perfectly planted vines. Pruned rose bushes at the end of each row. Bluestone and corrugated-iron buildings and sheds turned into cellar doors. After looking over the valley in silence for the next couple of kilometres, Rebecca added, ‘You know many of the German descendants here still speak a Silesian German dialect?’
‘Get out! Near 200 years on? That’s amazing,’ said Lisa.
‘Yeah. And in Bordeaux, France, on their way out here, they picked up shiraz and cabernet vines, making these vines the oldest in the world,’ said Rebecca.
‘How come they’re the oldest? Aren’t they still growing in Bordeaux?’ asked Lisa.
‘Nope. Phylloxera wiped out those old vines in Europe and the rest of the world in the 1870s, so these are the only vines to survive from that original patch. And South Australia is still phylloxera-free,’ said Rebecca.
‘How do you know all this shit?’ asked Lisa.
‘Because she’s the food and wine editor for Taste,’ said Penny.
Rebecca momentarily half-turned to look at Lisa over her shoulder. ‘I’m doing a feature piece on the Barossa Valley for Taste in an upcoming edition, so I’ve been doing some research. A review on Fino’s is going to be part of the feature, so I’d appreciate your feedback on the place on the drive back home. I want you both to pay special attention.’
Rebecca turned a bend and drove under the Tanunda arch into the bustling main street. Being a Saturday morning, the town was packed with locals doing their weekly shopping. Rebecca would have liked to stop at the farmers’ market, but they didn’t have the time.
She drove on a couple of kilometres until she reached Seppeltsfield Road and turned left.
‘Have either of you been to Seppeltsfield before?’ asked Rebecca.
‘Not me,’ said Lisa.
‘I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t, either,’ said Penny. ‘I’ve heard lots about it, but I’ve never been.’
‘Well, you’re both in for a treat. This place is its own township, and the roadway in is spectacular,’ said Rebecca.
‘What’s so special about the road?’ asked Lisa.
‘Wait and see,’ said Rebecca, smiling.
Rebecca drove on, passing through Marananga, its only building a small but very neat church. They then crested the rise.
‘Wow. This looks like something out of the Middle East. And it goes on forever,’ said Lisa.
Lying stretched out before them, flanking both sides of the road, were hundreds of towering date palms.
‘They look big enough to have been here for a hundred years! Who planted them?’ asked Penny.
‘They have been here for a hundred years, or nearly, and the story of who planted them and why is fascinating,’ said Rebecca. ‘Joseph Seppelt founded Seppeltsfield winery in 1851. He was one of those Silesian refugees I mentioned earlier. And during the depression in the 1930s, rather than sack workers, his son Oscar Benno Seppelt organised for them to plant over two thousand date palms on the roads surrounding the vineyards. And take a look to my right. There, up on the hill,’ Rebecca pointed to more date palms and box hedges that lined a steep set of stairs. ‘Oscar also built that stone Georgian mausoleum where he and twenty-eight of his descendants lie.’
‘I never knew any of this,’ said Penny. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Rebecca drove on, following the line of date palms as they ran past hectares of vines. Once they reached the Seppeltsfield estate, Rebecca couldn
’t help but drive past it for a short distance so Penny and Lisa could take in the immensity of its bluestone and corrugated-iron buildings and immaculate gardens.
‘This place is a town!’ said Lisa.
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ said Rebecca as she pulled the car off the road and onto a gravel driveway that wound around the renovated sheds that now contained the JamFactory gallery and craft studios.
As she pulled into a park under the shade of a gum tree, Rebecca said, ‘If you like, later this afternoon we can take a wander through the JamFactory. They have artisans doing heaps of cool stuff.’
‘Love to!’ exclaimed Penny.
‘Yep. Absolutely,’ echoed Lisa.
‘But first, let’s get a drink,’ said Rebecca.
They walked past a restored corrugated-iron building now set up as a shop for picking up wine orders made at the cellar door. As they passed under a vine-laden pergola, they glanced to their right at an old bluestone building with a wide verandah. Straight in front they caught a glimpse of more date palms behind a sand-coloured stone balustrade with wrought-iron lampposts in the foreground. In the background, Rebecca could make out the expansive grey-coloured corrugated-iron roof with the words ‘Welcome to Seppeltsfield’ emblazoned across it in white paint. The roof had a distinctive oblong cupola built atop, segmented with windows for light and louvres for ventilation.
As they approached the edge of the stone balustrade, they looked down at the paved courtyard set with marble tables and cane dining chairs. Date palms and black market-style umbrellas shaded the tables. Directly across from Rebecca lay a long bluestone building with the restaurant straight ahead and the cellar door to the right. The traditionally pointed bluestone walls were dissected with large modern steel-and-glass openings. To the right of the cellar door lay the other half of the bluestone building with its original verandah and intricate wrought-iron lacework. The sunken courtyard was bound on two sides by stone walls and edged by manicured gardens filled with Mediterranean plants such as pencil pines, olive trees, and citrus trees. Adding formality were clipped box hedges adjacent to the slate staircases leading to the sunken courtyard. Blue skies framed the picture-book scene.
A Royal Murder Page 7