‘Two conditions,’ I said.
Ken was ready for that. He would have thought less of me if I hadn’t asked. ‘Gil Methven is prepared to say that Eastlake resigned from all his official Arts positions as of the end of last year,’ he said, correctly anticipating my first demand. ‘That way, none of this will reflect on Angelo Agnelli as current minister. What’s your other condition?’
‘That depends on how long this little pow-wow takes,’ I said. ‘And it’s more of a favour than a condition. I might not even need it. But it’s well within your power, if I’m any judge. I’ll tell you what it is at the end of the meeting.’
As a matter of principle, Ken Sproule didn’t like dealing in the dark. But he didn’t have much time to manoeuvre. The press would already be making a beeline for the Domain Road flat. ‘Okay,’ he scowled. ‘Let’s go. And try not to give too much cheek. The cops have long memories, you know. Mind your manners.’
It wasn’t my manners I was worried about. It was the spondulicks in my dank underdaks. They were beginning to itch. If I didn’t get them out of there soon, I’d have a very nasty rash.
We went upstairs to a conference room with venetian blinds on the windows and rings from coffee cups on the tabletop. Webb was already there and two other cops I’d never seen before, both in their fifties, one in a suit, the other in uniform. You could tell the one in the suit was a senior officer by the cast of his face and way Noel Webb approached him on all fours. The one in uniform was an Assistant Commissioner. I knew that because his epaulette insignia consisted of crossed silver batons in a laurel wreath surround. Also because he was wearing a name tag that said Eric Worrall, Assistant Commissioner-Crime. Eric was a gaunt, expressionless man who could have got a job walking behind the hearse in a Charles Dickens novel.
The guy in the suit was introduced as Chief Inspector Brian Buchanan. He was all neck and looked like he’d gladly bust Santa Claus for driving an unregistered sleigh.
None of the cops were delirious with joy about me and Sproule being there and they didn’t go to a lot of trouble to conceal the fact. Having to share trade secrets with a couple of political flacks was bad enough, never mind that one of them had his shirt hanging out and smelt like he should have been in the care of the Salvation Army. I tried to take up as little space as possible and resist the urge to scratch.
Micaelis arrived just as we’d finished the introductions. Assistant Commissioner Worrall waved us into our seats. ‘This is strictly informal,’ he said. ‘And strictly confidential. The objective is to pool our information and determine a course of action. Agreed?’ Ken Sproule and I nodded. Worrall handed the running of the meeting to Buchanan.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Buchanan. He had a pencil in his hand and pointed at Micaelis with it. ‘What did the Lambert woman have to say?’
‘She’s on pain-killers, sir, but reasonably lucid.’ Micaelis’ hitherto pally demeanour was no longer in evidence. ‘She says she has no idea why Eastlake attacked her. Claims they’d been lovers for about a year but never quarrelled. She says she’d seen him earlier today and he was agitated about business matters, but otherwise normal towards her.’
Which meant, as I had hoped, that she had enough cunning not to mention the money. She probably wondered why Micaelis didn’t ask her about it.
‘What about the other one?’ said Buchanan. ‘Fleet.’
Micaelis had a sheaf of paper in front of him. ‘She contacted us this afternoon and came in with her solicitor while I was in attendance at the Lambert residence. She had a statement already prepared.’ He shuffled the papers around until he found what he wanted, referring to it as he spoke. ‘She and Eastlake were both on the committee that recommends arts grants. Last August, about the time that applications were being considered, she was having a relationship with Marcus Taylor. She recommended him for a grant and spoke highly of his technical skills and his’-Micaelis’ finger found the exact phrase-‘his post-modernist sensibility in relation to the validity of quotation and appropriation.’
‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ Buchanan pointed his pencil at me. He seemed to think I was an art expert.
‘It means he could do good fakes,’ I said.
‘You can get a grant for that?’ For a man who thought he was an orchestra conductor, Buchanan was harbouring some deep cultural insecurities.
‘Only a small one, sir,’ said Micaelis. ‘And Fleet thinks that was only to keep her happy. But, a few weeks later, Eastlake approached her wanting to know more about Taylor. In particular, he wanted to know if she thought Taylor could paint him some pictures in the manner of certain well-known artists. He even produced a list.’
Sproule spoke, addressing himself to the Assistant Commissioner. ‘The background here relates to the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme. Eastlake had persuaded the CUSS to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in an art collection, using a front called Austral Fine Art. The collection was a fiction. It existed only on paper. He used the money to keep his Obelisk round-robin going. He probably had in mind that when the Karlcraft project eventually paid off, Austral could recommend liquidating the collection. He got away with it for nearly a year, pretending to buy and sell artworks. But then the CUSS board decided it wanted to have an exhibition. Got all excited about the idea. Eastlake had no option but to play along. Suddenly he needed real paintings.’
Micaelis resumed. ‘Fleet approached Taylor on Eastlake’s behalf. She claims she was never party to any deception he may have subsequently engaged in, but she clearly knew what was going on. Taylor began producing paintings of the kind Eastlake required. The pictures were painted in his studio at the old YMCA building. Fleet informed Eastlake when they were ready. They were then picked up by Senior Sergeant Webb.’
‘The sergeant was already working undercover as Eastlake’s driver,’ Buchanan explained to Worrall. ‘Part of a long-term fraud squad investigation of Eastlake’s activities in relation to the Obelisk Trust.’
Ken Sproule tipped me a quiet wink. A vision came to me of the Members’ carpark at Flemington, of Sproule convincing a well-tanked Eastlake to hand his car keys to Noel, the helpful man from the detailing company.
‘Eastlake assumed I had no interest in his business affairs,’ said Webb. ‘I had access to his home, his office, documents, telephone conversations and so on. We were well on the way to establishing a strong case against him in relation to Obelisk when this business with the paintings began. My instructions were to collect them from Taylor’s studio-as many as two or three a week for nearly three months-and store them in the garage of Eastlake’s house in Toorak.’
‘We suspected these paintings related to some illegal activity,’ said Buchanan. ‘But our main focus was on the Obelisk investigation and it was only after the events of last Friday night that we began to realise the significance of the art works.’
By then, I’d worked out that Buchanan was the fraud-squad head honcho. He and Webb were very concerned that Assistant Commissioner Worrall adopt a favourable view of their activities. ‘And exactly what happened last Friday?’ said the big chief.
Yeah, I thought. Exactly what did happen? I leaned forward in my seat and adjusted my underpants under the rim of the table. There was a slight rustling sound.
Noel Webb cleared his throat and worked his jaw as if he wished he hadn’t chucked his chewy away. ‘About 9.30 on Friday night, I was driving Eastlake along Domain Road when we passed Taylor staggering drunkenly down the footpath. We picked him up and Eastlake had me drive the two of them around while he talked to Taylor about some particular painting. Something special, by the sound of it, in the style of a painter called Szabo. First he tried to convince Taylor just to let him see the picture. Taylor said he had it hidden away somewhere and nobody was going to see it until the time was right. Eastlake had a bottle of scotch and plied Taylor with it, but he wasn’t getting much joy. Taylor wouldn’t say where he had the painting. Eastlake offered him money for it, sight unseen. Twenty grand. Taylor reckoned that Eastlake was just trying to find out where the picture was hidden. Taylor was maudlin drunk. He kept going on about Fiona Lambert, how he was going to settle the score with her. He had no idea that she was Eastlake’s bit on the side. Meanwhile, I was driving around in circles through the Domain.’