“Who?” I push. “Your mother was well respected. Adept at pulling in funds for the deserving. Who might have wanted to sling mud?”
“Any one of the dozen growers whose contracts Mother had tom up in the past two months,” Billing says crisply. “They had no hope of finding buyers for their fruit. Perhaps Mother’s public humiliation afforded one of them some light relief.”
“Did anyone check your Mother’s glass? Or the bottle? After she’d done the cancan?”
“Didn’t occur to me,” Billing admits. “We were too busy hauling Mother down, then getting her home and into bed, to sleep it off.”
“What time was that?”
“Just after my presentation on the seasonal outlook.” His eyes close. Then fly open. “Just after one, give or take.”
“And how long afterwards did you find your mother?”
“Just on dark, it must’ve gone seven. I went over to the old cellar to lock up. We use it as a storeroom.”
Billing pauses, sighs.
“Go on,” Gudgeon prompts. “It may be important.”
“Mother always checked the cellar after an event. To see what we might recycle, that sort of thing. Then she’d lock up. Last night I thought she was still... indisposed, and decided to lock up for her.”
“And when you got there?” urges Gudgeon.
“Door was open. Infernally stuffy inside. It gets that way when the weather’s hot. That was why we built a modem facility, climate controlled,” he asides. “Mother was slumped on the flagstones. I called an ambulance, but she’d... gone.”
“What did you think had happened?” I prompt, after a few moments. “When you found her?”
“I assumed she’d still been... affected, when she risked the steps.” Billing shakes his head. “But I learned later that several members of staff had spoken to Mother last evening. They said she seemed quite recovered, though her pride was shaken. Maybe she fainted. And hit her head.”
“Autopsy’s ruled that out,” the chief is obliged to divulge.
“Any chance your mum was diabetic? Bad heart? Some other underlying medical condition?” I wonder aloud.
“Your autopsy should quickly determine if that was the case,” the son counters.
“Food poisoning? The menu boasted a heap of seafood for an outdoor event, on such a scorcher.”
Leeuwin Billing’s patience is running thinner than his hair. “Mother was meticulous when it came to presentation,” he says, crisp enough to snap. “It’s not rocket science, Detective Constable. You simply keep food chilled.”
Dr. Amity Billing’s tuning in via a stethoscope to the belly of a black stallion when Darwin and I roll up beside a stockyard at her horse clinic. It’s on the west side of the estate.
Gudgeon’s pitched us together as a “team-building exercise.”
His words.
He’s loitering back at the winery, checking out the scene of death and taking snaps with his mobile.
There’s sweat foaming the black beast’s chest and hind legs, and it’s tucked up tight as a balled fist. But it seems sweet as a kitten compared to the vet’s reaction when Darwin nudges the front bumper against a yard rail.
“Back off, okay!” The doc flies out of the barrier. She’s a small, slim firebrand, hard-wired with high-tensile steel. Her auburn hair’s pulled back into a neat chignon that’s at odds with her work clobber overalls and heavy leather boots. “Got a tetchy one. With you in a minute.”
We park up and watch while she runs a calming hand over the stallion’s flank, plugs in to the ’scope, and leans in.
“Colic, probably. Bit like having grubby fuel injectors. Leads to clogging, poor performance, even dirty emissions.”
Charlie’s stony silent while I favour him with the practicals.
“Often just needs hooking up to pressurized solvent to give it a good flush.”
He’s about to speak when Dr. Billing finishes. She strides over, pulling off one glove and extending a hand.
“Sorry, was listening for sand in the colon. Sure sign of colic,” she confirms.
“Don’t!” Darwin asides, in my direction, before I can give her the benefit.
Just then, all conversation hits a dead end as a loud shot cracks at close range. The sky turns into a psychedelic carnival of screeching parrots and the stallion tries to buck its way free.
“Automatic scarecrow,” I hear the doc explain. Just. My ears are ringing. “Gas gun. Goes off every half-hour to scare the birdies from the blessed grapes. Now...” She glances at her wrist watch. “Leeuwin said you’re checking out Virginia’s death. Can you make it snappy? I’m about to feed a stomach tube into a half-tonne of unhappy horse flesh.”
“You were at yesterday’s brunch?” Darwin asks.
“Showed my face, yes. Virginia insisted the family pitch in at promotional events. I arrived late — had a tricky foal to deliver. By the time I’d cleaned up and fronted, all hell had broken loose.”
“Can you describe it?” I prompt.
“Leeuwin and Soph were carting Virginia away. It was all very embarrassing. My daughter’s just seventeen. You can’t begin to imagine how the event distressed her.”
“And the party?”
“A triumph — at least it had been. Virginia had excelled herself. The marquee looked quite ethereal, with fog from the coolers swirling about and a string ensemble playing in the background.” Dr. Billing flicks another nervous glance at her watch. “But after... the incident, the party quickly broke up. Then it all went downhill. People simply slid away. A few stalwarts stayed on, helping to pack up the perishables, that sort of thing.”
That’s when my mobile starts. It’s the chief, forward texting the bloods results from the lab. Then he sends through some snaps from the cellar. An open staircase. Flagstones. Some fairly unremarkable shots of empty Styrofoam boxes, stacked in tiers.
“How did you get on with your mother-in-law?” Darwin asks, in the light of new evidence.
The doc manages a dry laugh. “Do I look like I’m grieving?”
Maybe something about our awkward silence spurs the tart rider. “Rest assured, however, that I most certainly did not do anything to contribute to Virginia’s death.”
“Someone did. Seems her drink was spiked...” I start.
Dr. Billing tenses. “Surely you’ve been through this already.”
“No trace of alcohol in the victim’s blood,” I continue. “Just norketamine. It’s a breakdown product of ketamine.”
“What!”
“Tranquiliser. It’s used to give neddies the noddies.”
“Yes, yes, I know what it is.” The doc drops her head in her hands. Then rallies, becomes brisk. “No doubt you’ll need to check my supply.”
We’re led to a locked annexe. It’s adjacent to a rose-clad cottage a short canter from the yards.
“Who lives here?” Darwin asks, pausing to smell a cluster of Souvenir de la Malmaison.
“Just Leeuwin, Sophie, and me. It’s far enough from the winery to give us some peace.”
Inside, she unlocks a refrigerated cabinet and lifts out a tray of 10-milliliter vials. But doesn’t need to start counting.
“There’s one missing,” she says, suddenly pale. Her lips move as she goes through the motions. “Fourteen. Should be fifteen. Someone’s broken in.”
DS Gudgeon lays charges against Sophie Billing an hour and a half later.
“Thought the police minister would have our guts for garters,” I admit to Darwin, snaffling an éclair from the tray of cakes the man himself has supplied. We’re back at the drinks vending machine, experimenting with iced-tea cocktails.
“He considers she got off lightly,” the chief chips in, helping himself to a ginger zinger. “Drink spiking, given her youth, first offence... reads a lot better than murder.”