Kloof Estates

By Kay Taylor

Gay Cooper’s father died and she inherited the farm and a boutique hotel. Unfortunately for Gay the farm and the hotel are not making money and she is facing bankruptcy. Garth Townsend is an investment analysis and financial advisor. He takes the wrong turn on the farm road and arrives at the homestead only to find a furious Gay Cooper anxiously waiting for him.
She berates him about his terrible investments, tells him to sort things out and that she would be back at lunch time. He scrutinises her investments and discovers the horrible truth. All her investments are long term and will not give a good yield for at least fifteen years. To his surprise he also notices a huge fraud been perpetrated by the staff on the Estate.
Gay arrives back at lunch time only for her to discover a huge case of mistaken identity. Garth explains to her the vagaries of her investments and then discloses he has uncovered a massive fraud. Practically every single member of her staff is either stealing money or goods from her.
He solves the mystery of her fathers Will and finds sufficient bridging finance while he completes his fraud investigation. He helps her recoup the stolen funds from the health Spa, reduce the theft in household expenses exposes the fraud in the boutique hotel.
Unfortunately Gay manages to insult everybody Garth brings around to help her restore her father’s farm to its former glory.
Gay manages to expose the fraud in her Country Style Store and begins to take control of her life. Garth arranges to have all the dairy products produced on the farm to be sold exclusively through a huge supermarket chain.
She reluctantly agrees only for her to discover that the supermarket is slow in the payment of accounts. Gay gate crashes a board meeting and is horrified to discover the embarrassing truth regarding Garth and all the people who had been trying to help her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kay Taylor
• Release date: Jul 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9780620792790

Kay Taylor

Kay Taylor is a 46 year old married mother of two living in Zurich, Switzerland. She was born and educated in South Africa but travels on a British passport. Kay spent a number of years working in the corporate environment before deciding to opt out and start writing full time. She has written several novels but has only now, 2018, elected to publish.Travels with her husband has taken Kay all over the world and as a consequence her books are written with either an Australian or South African background. Her latest book, Deception, a romantic thriller, will be published on e-books in the second half of 2018, and the story line for this particular novel, takes place in the US of A.Kay is a very private person and for several years she wrote solely for personal pleasure. It took considerable persuasion from her family before she allowed her books to be published. Kay has emphatically refused to divulge her personal e-mail address and as a consequence, all correspondence can be channelled through her mother and secretary in South Africa. The address is as follows: [e-mail]

Book preview

Kloof Estates

ISBN No. 978-0-620-79279-0

All characters and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Other Books by Kay Taylor

Times A’ Wasting

Only On My Terms

Coffee and Cognac

Deception {soon to be released}

Kloof Estates - Synopsis

Gay Cooper’s father died and she inherited the farm and a boutique hotel. Unfortunately for Gay the farm and the hotel are not making money and she is facing bankruptcy. Garth Townsend is an investment analysis and financial advisor. He takes the wrong turn on the farm road and arrives at the homestead only to find a furious Gay Cooper anxiously waiting for him.

She berates him about his terrible investments, tells him to sort things out and that she would be back at lunch time. He scrutinises her investments and discovers the horrible truth. All her investments are long term and will not give a good yield for at least fifteen years. To his surprise he also notices a huge fraud being perpetrated by the staff on the Estate.

Gay arrives back at lunch time only for her to discover a huge case of mistaken identity. Garth explains to her the vagaries of her investments and then discloses he has uncovered a massive fraud. Practically every single member of her staff is either stealing money or goods from her.

He solves the mystery of her fathers Will and finds sufficient bridging finance while he completes his fraud investigation. He helps her recoup the stolen funds from the health Spa, reduce the theft in household expenses exposes the fraud in the boutique hotel.

Unfortunately Gay manages to insult everybody Garth brings around to help her restore her father’s farm to its former glory.

Gay manages to expose the fraud in her Country Style Store and begins to take control of her life. Garth arranges to have all the dairy products produced on the farm to be sold exclusively through a huge supermarket chain.

She reluctantly agrees only for her to discover that the supermarket is slow in the payment of accounts. Gay gate crashes a board meeting and is horrified to discover the embarrassing truth regarding Garth and all the people who had been trying to help her.

Main Characters

Male: Garth Townsend, Uncle Tom and Herr Gottlieb

Female: Gay Cooper, Aunt May and Aunt June and Esmeralda Viviers

Chapter 1

To say she was angry was an understatement. He was late, he was more than late. Was he ever going to arrive? He made the appointment, and now she, was fifteen minutes behind schedule. He was going to get more than a tongue lashing that’s for certain. She had made up her mind, it was time to get a new financial broker and she was going to take her business elsewhere. She glanced at her watch for the tenth time and the minute hand crept on to twenty minutes past the hour. She had invested all her life savings into a series of investments which were not giving her a sufficient return. In fact they were not giving her a return at all. Her life savings were not were just sitting there growing old and growing bigger, they were sitting there and stagnating and possibly, diminishing in size. To compound her problems, the Estate was going down the road to rack and ruin and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

It was a Wednesday morning and a few kilometres way, as the crow flies, Garth Townsend was on his way to work. Miss Phipps his secretary, had contacted him on his mobile asking him to bring a bottle of milk to work failing which, the coffee would be black. Garth smiled to himself as he remembered the previous evening.

He had decided to work late on Wednesday and at about seven in the evening he noticed a feral cat lurking on the veranda outside his office window. He felt sorry for the animal so he cut his pie in half and then poured all the milk from the bottle, into a dish. After placing them on the veranda he went back to work. Five minutes later he raised his head. The half pie was gone and the cat was lapping up the cool milk. Garth knew he had not done the cat any favours but on the other hand he well knew what it was like going to bed on an empty stomach. Miss Phipps had said something about stopping off at Country Style Store and buying milk for the office tea and coffee. Garth had heard about Country Style Store as it also boasted a spa, conference centre and a boutique hotel. In all his years he had never been to the Country Style Store let alone a spa or the boutique hotel. He was quite content to do his grocery shopping at Rexfords in the local shopping mall.

Winter in Durban is the best time of the year for all its citizens. The hot humid summer air makes way for the cool sea breezes and everybody seems to get a spring in their step. Garth wound down the window of his car a few centimetres and inhaled the cool morning air. Life for Garth Townsend was good and a few moments later he spied the sign.

Kloof Estates. The Home of the Original Country Style Store. Garth swung his car into the driveway only to be stopped by a uniformed security guard. He quickly signed his name in the visitor’s book and was on his way. Straight ahead, keep left, and the speed limit is thirty, were both the directions and instructions from the security guard.

As Garth slowly cruised down the tree lined gravel road he noticed a man sitting on an enormous lawn mower cutting grass. Not an unusual occupation one might think but this particular machine operator was leaning over at a very acute angle and the track he was mowing was extremely erratic. Garth stopped his car to watch and then laughed to himself.

It was almost twenty past eight in the morning and the man driving the lawnmower appeared extremely intoxicated. As he went past Garth tooted on his horn and waved to the grass cutter. The grass cutter responded, by waving his right hand and then his left. The lack of controls on the steering wheel caused the lawnmower to drive in a tight circle and operator promptly fell off. Garth stopped his car and rushed to the man’s assistance. The flashing blades beneath the mower could sever fingers and hands in an instant. Garth helped the man to his feet and at the same time deftly removed the key from the ignition. The engine cut out and the man slumped back into the driver’s seat.

Without a word the man nodded at Garth and then started delving into his jacket pocket. Moments later he produced a very expensive bottle of imported brandy and with relish, swigged down a few mouthfuls. Realising that this was none of his business Garth turned on his heel and went back to his car. Straight ahead and keep left, were the directions but Garth had missed the turnoff to the left while watching the man on the lawnmower and as a result he was driving down a road, which he was later to find out was marked Private - Homestead.

Twenty seconds later his tires crunched on the grey gravel leading up to the house. He admired the house from behind the wheel of his car. A large gleaming white double story mansion with a green painted roof. A veranda extended along the front of the entire building and from where he was sitting, around the western side of the building as well. Beautifully tendered flower beds, although bare of blooms, indicated that in the height of summer the mansion would look spectacular. Garth immediately realised he had not followed the directions from the security guard. He was about to follow the driveway and drive around the gleaming white fountain in the middle of the garden when he noticed a tall slim woman standing on the right hand side of the veranda. Black painted bricks outlined parking areas and Garth drove over and parked near a mud spattered quad bike. No sooner had he got his door open when the young woman started talking very loudly as she hopped down the short stair case and strode purposefully towards him. By the tone of her voice, he knew she was more than angry.

Do you know what time it is? She could barely contain her anger as her eyes narrowed to slits as she pursed her lips. Garth knew it to be a rhetorical question and raised his hand, in a vain attempt to calm her down. This seemed to goad her to even greater heights of fury.

You are nearly half an hour late and my jam is waiting for me. Her voice went up a notch as she walked towards him swinging her helmet in her left hand. Garth stepped back expecting to be hit by the steel headgear. She then turned and pointing to an open door and issued a series of short explicit instructions.

Use my office, don’t mess, and you can start with your stupid investments.

Garth got a word in, But ........

No butts, she said interrupting him, I’ll be back at one for lunch and you better have your story straight.

Garth watched in amazement as she sped away on her quad bike. Well I hope she catches up to her jam, said Garth to himself as he mounted the three stairs and walked into the office. On the enormous old oak desk were several files piled on top of each other including a file marked Investments which lay on the very top. Garth looked around the office and admired the almost forgotten craftsmanship. The wooden planks on the floor were at least eight inches wide and did not creak as he walked to the desk. The floor board’s gleamed a rich brown in the morning light and Garth realised that they were waxed regularly. Teak if I’m not mistaken, he mused. The walls were either wood panelled or shelved. He tapped a wood panel with his knuckles and realised the walls were not covered with a veneer but solid timber. The ceiling was also wood panelled and that the wood was yellow, obviously to augment any light from a lamp or candle. I’ll bet that’s yellow wood, he said to himself. There was a fireplace on an inner wall and any ash that might have remained from previous fires had long since been removed. Garth opened the file marked Investments while still standing in front of the desk and started to peruse the documents bound within.

Gay sped away on her quad bike. To say she was angry was an understatement. She wanted to wring his neck and then throw his bones to the dogs. She didn’t have any dogs but for that idiot she would gladly get herself a couple of big vicious hounds just to devour the damn idiot. Her Estate was almost bankrupt and he had the audacity to arrive late and then start trying to make excuses. She started to relax a little as she navigated a bend in the gravel road and thought about her brief encounter a few moments earlier. Yes, he was a good looking man, but punctuality was not his strong point. She estimated him to be about seven or eight centimetres taller than herself and he looked about thirty three of thirty four years old to her twenty nine. He was wearing a light grey suit, white shirt and a peacock blue tie. His shoes were black and polished. She had seen a flash of white when he tried to smile and that soon vanished when she had continued with her tirade. He might be good looking she thought to herself but if my investments don’t start producing money he won’t be so good looking when she had finished with him.

Garth slammed the file down on the desk in disgust and returned to his car. From his briefcase he extracted a large note pad and a propelling pencil. He returned to the desk and as he picked up the file he felt something brush his leg. He looked down, smiled, and scooped up a ginger coloured cat.

Hello boy, he said to