Keely followed the direction of Euan’s outstretched arm, looking across the rows of vines extending over the gentle slope before them. They’d been on a short walking tour to various vantage points on the property with Euan naming the different grapes they grew and the wine they made from them. Rows of trellised vines stretched away to distant trees and once again she glimpsed patches glinting in the sun that revealed the river edging its way along the bottom of the slope.

She turned back to study him. This morning he had a battered broad-brimmed hat on his head shadowing the freckles and creases of his face as he stared off into the distance. Once again she was reminded of her first impression of him as scarecrow-like. Watching him survey the vines in front of him, she knew his statement about his chardonnay wasn’t a boast, more a satisfied acknowledgement of the facts.

She wasn’t much of a wine drinker, preferring cocktails and the odd glass of prosecco. There had been a few winery tours with friends at McLaren Vale near her home and once to the Adelaide Hills but she’d never thought much about what it took to produce the actual wine. Here she was, standing in the middle of a living, working vineyard with Euan, who was obviously passionate about his work.

“Do you sell it here?” Keely wondered if they had cellar-door sales in one of the several big sheds.

Euan frowned. “No, most of our wine is sold through our distributors. We don’t run a cellar door.”

Keely noted the finality in his last words. “Oh. I thought that’s how wineries sold their wine.”

He smiled at her. “It’s one way to make sales but we don’t need it. We have relied on our distributors and our wines have always sold well, both in Australia and overseas. We were dabbling with cellar-door sales a few years ago. You may have noticed the undercover area alongside the carport.”

That must have been the big enclosed space she’d seen when she’d walked gingerly around the perimeter of the house the day before. After deciding to stay on at Levallier Dell, she’d gone back to bed and dozed and read. Euan had gone off and she’d seen no sign of Flynn. In the late afternoon she’d needed to stretch her legs and clear her brain in readiness for her mother’s phone call. She’d peered under the large paved verandah along the side of the house but it was overgrown with plants and clogged with accumulated leaves, dirt and cobwebs. It didn’t look as if anyone had been in there for a long time.

“Lucy, my wife, was the keen one but after she died and Flynn went interstate to study, it wasn’t a priority.”

Keely wondered what had happened to Mrs Levallier.