Police headquarters weren’t centrally air conditioned. The cooler in the window frame kicked in with a whirr like an asthmatic fridge compressor. Noel Webb had our undivided attention.
‘After a couple of hours of this, Eastlake told me to park the car and dismissed me for the night. This was across the road from the National Gallery. I hung around for a bit, watching, but all they were doing was sitting in the back seat talking and drinking. I left them to it and went home.’
He paused at this anti-climax, as if offering us the opportunity to ask questions. Assistant Commissioner Worrall had one. ‘Can somebody enlighten me on the significance of this conversation?’
Micaelis could. ‘According to Salina Fleet, sir, Taylor had a grudge against Lambert. She’d knocked him back for an exhibition of his real pictures, told him they weren’t up to scratch. Plus there was some sort of bad blood relating to a dead painter by the name of Victor Szabo. On Lambert’s recommendation, the Centre for Modern Art recently purchased a painting by this Victor Szabo. So Taylor got the idea of painting a copy of the Szabo and using it to discredit Lambert in some way. He was getting quite het up about it, apparently. Fleet realised this might cause problems for Eastlake and alerted him to the fact. She also tried to dissuade Taylor. But he got drunk and went off half-cocked at an exhibition at the Centre for Modern Art last Friday night, threatening to blow the whistle.’
I thought it was about time I said something, just so I didn’t get taken for granted. ‘I was there,’ I volunteered. ‘Taylor had been drinking, psyching himself up, and he fell over mid-speech. Made me cut my finger on a broken champagne glass.’ I held up the damaged digit. Worrall looked at me like I’d just given him further grounds to doubt the wisdom of the Chief Commissioner’s information-sharing policy. ‘Because Taylor was drunk, nobody paid any attention to what he was saying,’ I said. ‘But it must have given Eastlake a scare. If Taylor made himself the centre of an art-world brouhaha, the whole CUSS fraud would be at risk.’
Webb took up the narrative from there. ‘The next morning, I’d just heard about Taylor being found dead when Eastlake told me to go clear out his studio. He particularly wanted any paintings of a house with a lawn-mower.’
Buchanan held up his hand and stopped him there. ‘Sergeant Webb sought instruction at that point,’ he told Worrall. ‘At that time, on the basis of information to hand, the cause of Taylor’s death was still unknown. Eastlake may have been involved, or he may just have been taking advantage of the situation to cover his tracks. So rather than jeopardise a successful ongoing undercover investigation, I instructed Sergeant Webb to carry on as normal.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Micaelis, ‘Salina Fleet had seen Taylor’s body being recovered. Her immediate assumption was that Eastlake was responsible.’
The penny dropped. ‘Bastard!’ I said. Everyone looked at me. ‘“Bastard!” That’s what Salina Fleet said when she saw Taylor’s body. She must have meant Eastlake. I thought she meant me.’ They all looked at me then like maybe I should explain why she might think such a thing. ‘Sorry,’ I said to Micaelis. ‘Please go on.’
‘Fleet panicked. She thought that if Eastlake was prepared to kill Taylor, then maybe she’d be next. She immediately started talking up the suicide scenario, hoping to send a signal to Eastlake that she was no threat to him.’
Noel Webb cleared his throat. ‘As instructed by Eastlake, I went to the YMCA and searched Taylor’s studio. I found a painting that fitted the description Eastlake had given me and put it, and a number of other sketches and paintings, in the boot of Eastlake’s Mercedes.’ As he said this, he fixed me in a steady gaze, inviting me not to contradict him or elaborate on his story. Discussions about people being locked in basements for their own well-being, I clearly understood, had no part in these proceedings.
Assistant Commissioner Worrall wasn’t interested in fake paintings. He had homicide on his mind. ‘How does any of this relate to the Taylor death?’ He looked at his watch like maybe somebody should get to the point. I checked mine, too. 8.07 p.m. It was beginning to look like I definitely wouldn’t be seeing Red again for some time.
Chief Superintendent Buchanan was all for getting back to the point, too. He wanted it made clear that his decision to keep Spider undercover hadn’t resulted in a killer being allowed to run loose. ‘At that time, the only evidence to connect Eastlake with Taylor’s death was purely circumstantial.’ He tapped his pencil on the table, punctuating his points. ‘The medical evidence suggested an accident. When we sought to question Fleet about inconsistencies in her original statement, the one suggesting suicide, she couldn’t be found.’ He gave me a meaningful look. I kept my trap shut. The coppers were too clever by half for the likes of me.
He tapped again. ‘It wasn’t until this afternoon that more substantial information came to hand. The scotch bottle found with Taylor’s body had two sets of prints on it. The second set didn’t match any we had on record. Sergeant Webb lifted a set of Eastlake’s dabs off his vehicle for comparison, but the match didn’t come back until late this afternoon. As you know, sir, they’re pretty under-resourced down there.’
Here Worrall looked at Ken Sproule to make sure he took the point.
‘Then Fleet turned up,’ Buchanan went on. ‘She’d spent the night at the Travelodge, she said, thinking things over. Apparently, she was under the misapprehension that Sergeant Webb, acting on Eastlake’s instructions, was planning to kill her. She brought her lawyer with her and gave us a fairly detailed statement. Also, as a result of enquiries among taxi drivers working that night, a driver…’
‘Stanislaw Korzelinski.’ Micaelis must have been hoping for an A-Plus in note taking.
‘…reported seeing two men fitting the general descriptions of Eastlake and Taylor on the moat parapet about the time of death. He says that one was lying down and the other appeared to be shaking him by the shoulders. Either that or banging his head on the stonework.’
Buchanan dropped his pencil and it rolled into the centre of the table. We all looked at it. We all saw the same thing. Eastlake, remonstrating with the drunken Taylor, knocking him unconscious and rolling him into the water.
Assistant Commissioner Worrall waited until the pencil came entirely to rest, studying it down his thin bony nose. ‘Very well,’ he said, at last. ‘Point taken. Now how does all this bear on the current situation, the shootings in Domain Road.’
Chief Superintendent Buchanan pressed his point home. ‘Whether Eastlake killed Taylor intentionally or not will probably never be known. What we do know is that the imminent financial collapse of Obelisk Trust was going to both ruin Eastlake personally and bring his fraud to light. So killing Taylor solved nothing. The pressure of this knowledge, and various other factors, drove him over the brink. As evidenced by his unprovoked attack on both Mr Whelan here and on Fiona Lambert, he was no longer in control of his mental faculties.’
‘These other factors,’ I said. ‘Would they include the murder of Giles Aubrey?’
Sproule kicked me under the table.
‘Who?’ said the Assistant Commissioner-Crime.
‘A retired art dealer,’ said Buchanan, quickly. He made a drooping movement with his wrist that might, arguably, have been a gesture of casual dismissal. ‘Marginal to the case. He died of a fall yesterday afternoon. We have no reason whatsoever to suspect foul play.’ The police, too, bury their mistakes.