So Far Into You (10 page)

‘Pardon?' Remy sat bolt upright and smothered her bark of nervous laughter. The suggestion was ridiculous. ‘I would never deliberately set out to poison anything … I mean, you can't think …' Yet it was clear from the two expressions opposite, ‘vineyard murderess' was what they'd like to scrawl across the pages of her personnel file, in ink dripping blood.

‘You seemed … upset when I saw you in the CEO's office last night,' Ailsa prompted. ‘I overheard you say Mr Lasrey clarified a company policy to you, and I can only
assume
that policy was our workplace relationships memo.' She ran a nail on the margin of Remy's file, slowly, as if cutting it with a dull knife. ‘There have been rumours about you and Blake. I see here a complaint was made. I had discussed that with Mr Lasrey previously and there's a note in your file. It's possible that you were feeling aggrieved with the suggestions Mr Lasrey put to you last night, Remy, and so you might have acted rashly this morning …'

‘Even if you've since regretted it,' Diane finished, let the words hang over the table like sour mist.

That she would ever deliberately set out to poison the Lasrey vines was so far from the truth it took a good ten seconds before Remy could frame more than a stunned syllable in response. How did she defend herself without making things worse? How would Ailsa react if she told her the only dressing down the CEO had given her in his office last night had been with his eyes?

Placing both hands on the table, curling her fingernails to hide the dirt, she leaned forward. This was a witch-hunt and it had gone on long enough. ‘I would never deliberately set out to kill a vineyard. Ever. I love nature. I love plants. Viticulture is my career.'

‘Is it?' Ailsa said, bringing her hand to her cheek so the sparkle of rings vied for attention with the sparkle of gold hinge in her glasses. ‘I'm not convinced.'

‘I love my job, Mrs Lasrey.'

Ailsa's lips pursed. ‘You've been with us, what now … five months?'

‘Six,' Diane interjected, shifting in her seat, not looking up.

‘Six months. In that time you've poisoned my vineyard and complaints have been made regarding the nature of your relationship with my youngest son—it's hardly an auspicious start. Let me be very clear here, Remy. We can't afford to have employees with us who cannot give us one hundred per cent focus on the job. A winery is a dangerous workplace when people let themselves get distracted by workplace relationships that are anything other than professionally conducted. I think you've let yourself get distracted that way today, and this is the result.'

She's going to tell me not to bother coming in tomorrow. She's going to sack my stupid arse.
It was there in the way Diane Laurie wouldn't lift her eyes from her keyboard, and how the keys clacking beneath her fingers sounded like they, too, didn't give a damn.

Remy gave a damn. She gave a bloody great big damn.

If she lost this job she'd have to front Doug Mulvraney and tell him she couldn't make a repayment for a few weeks. Mulvraney said he liked her. He said she had ‘spunk'. She was pretty sure that wouldn't stop him cutting off her finger if he thought she was welching on what her father had owed him when he died.

‘Rina says there are operating procedures in the storeroom for safe-handling of chemicals and a checklist to sign off, and that you signed against the checklist this morning,' Ailsa said.

‘That's correct.'

‘And would you say we've given you the training you need to complete a simple spraying task without supervision?'

‘Yes,' she said miserably. It was true. Greg Trimble had been patient and thorough. As well as all the big stuff, he'd run her through the small: how you had to kick the bottom sliding door of the pump shed with your toe to get it to shut flush.

‘I'm not trying to be horrible about all this, Remy. Truly I'm not. This is business and tough decisions have to be made.'

Yes. You. Are. Horrible.
‘I understand.'

‘You're a second-year university graduate, not a junior fresh out of school, and we pay you as such,' Ailsa said. ‘Greg is a busy man. Your position is supposed to support him, not require his supervision of every basic task.'

‘I know that, Mrs Lasrey. I'll do anything to make this right. If I could take the morning back and start again, I would. I'm asking you to give me another chance. Please.'
And I'll start looking for a new job tomorrow because if you think for a minute that I want to work here any longer than I absolutely have to, you've got another think coming. But I need a new job to go to first.

Ailsa sighed as if she was being asked to give up a kidney. ‘It's not a decision I can make on my own. Diane, can I see you outside for a minute?'

Diane Laurie finished typing and scanned the laptop screen. ‘I'll send this out to the printer in reception, Remy. I'll get a copy for you to read and sign.'

‘Okay.'

Although, as the two women left the room in a rustle of perfume and pressed shirts, Remy knew it wasn't okay at all.

***

Five minutes later, Ailsa re-entered the boardroom with a sheath of typewritten pages in her hand. These she passed to Remy. ‘Have a read through. You can make any notes and discuss them with me. Sign on the last page that it's accurate.'

Ailsa sat again and stayed as Remy read. Occasionally the older woman shuffled a page in Remy's file or wrote a note in the margins, but for the most part she was spectacularly unobtrusive, except for her rings. One of those rocks caught in the lights and every time Ailsa twitched her fingers, the shine danced at the edge of Remy's vision.

Reading the report only reinforced Remy's view that she'd been a first-class ditz.
Hell and Tommy,
anyone would think she was a complete moron who couldn't find a bunch of grapes in a vineyard without a map. Ailsa Lasrey could have been nicer about it but Remy could understand the woman's frustration.

‘Happy?' Ailsa said eventually, tapping the file with her pen, which translated to
hurry up and sign
.

‘No. Not happy. I can't believe I was so careless. But I'll sign it. It's the truth.' So she did, and pushed the pages across the table.

‘No questions?' Ailsa said, opening the three pages to check Remy's signature on the last.

‘No. Can I just say again how sorry I am for all this? What I really want to do is get out there and help Greg fix my stuff-up.'
And get out of this room so I can blow my nose and breathe fresh air again.

She was pushing up from her chair when Ailsa said: ‘I'm not finished yet,' in a tone that glued Remy's backside to the seat.

Ailsa took a flimsy rectangle of paper from Remy's personnel file then folded the incident report inside the file. She closed it, lacing her hands over the smooth beige.

‘Diane—' Ailsa waved a hand dismissively in the direction of the door ‘—says I have to give you two written warnings before I terminate your employment. I'm a bit more old-school. The way I see it someone is accountable and if it's not you, then it's Greg. You're his responsibility.'

‘It's not Greg, Mrs Lasrey. This is all on me.'

Ailsa tipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘Commendable. And I must say it's refreshing to come across an employee with that perspective. Most staff would have been covering their backsides from the moment Rina discovered there was a problem. They'd be telling me they haven't been trained properly or they haven't been
shown
, or they only did what their supervisor
told
them to do.'

‘I've never had any problem with taking responsibility, Mrs Lasrey,' Remy said, fighting a mix of frustration, panic, and the growing urge to have a damn good cry. She didn't cry often, but it had been a shitty, shitty day—the queen of shitty days—and it wasn't getting any better.

‘Good.' Ailsa smiled a smile so cold, it burned. ‘You weren't concentrating on your job this morning and you mixed up the wrong chemical because you were a million miles away—caught up in some fool's dream involving my son. And this time, I don't mean Blake.'

The words were like a scalpel laying the truth bare, all Remy could do was blink.

Ailsa inhaled: long, deliberate. Then she exhaled, hard and fast. ‘In my opinion you should never have been employed here in the first place, but I let Greg Trimble recommend you, and the board
chose
you against my better judgement. I want your resignation. I'll even say please.'

An image of Doug Mulvraney's weasel face filled Remy's mind. Her crappy rental house. That ugly hulking hedge. Lexie hefting supermarket boxes late on Sunday nights. Bills on the fridge.

Resigning wasn't an option. Not without something to go to. And what winery would employ her now, after this?

‘I need this job. Please. I have financial obligations.'
Debts to a man who makes you look like a cuddly toy.

‘You think
you're
out of pocket,' Ailsa said, voice rising. ‘You poison my flagship vines. Cost me a small fortune in man-hours trying to fix-up your error. If we can't fix it then my insurance excess and premiums all go up—not to mention the wine we can't make for years from the cabernet block.' Ailsa fingered the rectangle of paper she'd pulled from the file. It was upside-down on the table and she pushed it back and forth.

‘The vines might not be that bad, Mrs Lasrey. Greg has a plan—'

‘For a smart girl you're being very stupid.' Ailsa's finger stabbed the table once, diamonds flashing beneath the overhead lights. ‘No winery in Margaret River will employ you after this. There's no happy ending here, Remy. I saw you in Seth's office last night. I saw the look on your face. I've seen it before. Girls have been throwing themselves at him since he was in high school. You do know he's about to get engaged, don't you?'

‘I didn't throw myself at anyone …' and then the last word snagged in her head.
Engaged?

Suddenly, Remy felt very, very tired and she just wanted this finished. All the emotions she'd weathered since Seth shielded her from the storm on Saturday imploded and fell flat, like fallout from a mushroom cloud. She'd been an idiot, quite obviously, in more ways than one.

‘Everyone who works here knows about Helene, except you,' Ailsa said. ‘That's why Seth's gone to France. Helene Bouchard is the daughter of our oak supplier. Bouchard is the most prestigious barrel manufacturer in France. She and Seth have been lovers for years. Helene understands him. Hers is a great wine legacy, too. Such a wonderful family …'

‘He said he was going to an exhibition. Vinitech.'

‘Oh, he is. That's first. He'll be finished with that in a few days. The rest of the time he'll be at the Bouchard Cooperage with Helene.'

Adieu, Helene.
Remy remembered his farewell on the phone yesterday as clearly as if Seth had been in the room. She pushed up from her seat, not wanting Ailsa to see how much she hurt. This time, she made it to her feet. ‘I won't waste any more of your time, Mrs Lasrey. I assume I shouldn't bother coming in for work tomorrow?'

‘There's just one final matter.' Ailsa pushed the slip of paper across the table.

Remy hadn't been able to see it clearly before. Now she could see it was a cheque. ‘Why did we bother with the charade about my job when you've already calculated my final pay?'

‘Due process,' Ailsa said, tapping the cheque. ‘Go on, take it. No hard feelings.'

Except Remy had plenty of hard feelings. Peer into her soul right now, she was iron.

She shimmied her thumbnail beneath the cheque, twisted it up, took a cursory glance, and stopped dead in her tracks. ‘What the hell is this?'

Chapter 7

When he reached the hotel in Bordeaux, about thirty-six hours after getting on the plane in Perth on Tuesday night, Seth booked a wake-up call at reception for an hour's time and kicked off his shoes, sprawling fully clothed on the quilt. As flights went, the long haul from Singapore to Paris hadn't been bad but it was always madness at Charles de Gaulle. He'd had forty minutes to clear customs and make the regional flight to Bordeaux. About an hour in the air, half an hour to disembark, a taxi-ride and check-in later he'd finally been able to get horizontal.

Every time he'd tried to sleep on the plane, he'd thought about Remy, in his office. He'd hear himself telling her to stand against the wall, and she'd give that little moan.

None of which made getting any sleep particularly easy. Finally, his body succumbed to the long flight.

When the wake-up call came, he woke fast.

Throwing off the covers, he rubbed his hand through his hair, yawned, stretched, and was looking for a fresh shirt in his travel bag when the phone rang again, his mobile this time. He felt a jolt run through him, a hope that it might be Remy.

He tried not to feel disappointed at the name on the caller ID. ‘Hey. I thought you gave up checking in on my flights years ago?'

‘You never stop being a mother, darling. How was the flight?' The connection was perfect. Ailsa could have been next door, not half the world away.

‘Fine. Long. I'm about to head downstairs for dinner. What's up?'

She laughed: a stretched, synthetic sound, like tearing one of those old vinyl Elvis records she loved. ‘I think you could safely say we've seen better days, darling.'

‘What's up?' Seth said again, sharper this time.

‘That Hanley girl sprayed the cabernet block with something called,' Ailsa paused over the unfamiliar word, ‘oxfluorofen this morning. It's some kind of herbicide—'

‘I know what it is,' Seth interrupted. ‘But
how?
'

‘From what we've been able to gather she mixed the wrong chemical in the spray tank. She said she had a brain-fade. I'm not so sure about that but anyway, it hardly matters after the event.'