The Brush-Off mw-1

by Shane Maloney

  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.

  ‘As to the business in the Domain Road flat,’ said the Assistant Commissioner. ‘I have been given to understand that Eastlake, having shot Miss Lambert, turned the gun on himself.’

  He looked at Sproule. The other three coppers looked at me. Nobody said anything. Me least of all.

  ‘That’s it then,’ said Worrall. ‘An open-and-shut case. Suicide brought on by pressure of business. Now it only remains to tie up the loose ends.’

  Micaelis was still young. He hadn’t quite got the whole message. ‘We’d have to prove Fleet knowingly conspired to defraud, sir,’ he said. ‘Very difficult with her co-conspirators dead.’

  ‘And without a complainant,’ said Sproule good-naturedly, doing his best not to take the mickey. ‘I’ve already spoken to our friends at the Trades Hall. The board of the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme has no interest in further investigation of this matter. Its art collection no longer exists. It never did.’

  The westering sun had turned the venetians to burnt sienna. There wasn’t anything left to say. Assistant Commissioner Worrall pulled his navy blue sleeve back and looked at his watch. I could have told him if he’d asked. 8.12 p.m.

  Worrall stood up, nodded and briskly left the room. It must have been his turn to ride the goat at the Masonic Lodge. Buchanan reached across the table and picked up his pencil. Noel Webb pushed his chair back, blew out a long stream of air and took a packet of gum out of his pocket. Senior Constable Micaelis gathered his papers together and squared off the edges. Ken Sproule cracked his knuckles and looked exceedingly pleased with himself.

  ‘Ken,’ I said. ‘About that favour.’

  The white Commodore V-8 with the chequerboard stripe down the side flashed its twin blue lights, whooped its siren and swung across the path of the metallic green Laser reversing away from the kerb. I jumped out and jerked open the Laser’s rear door. ‘Out of the car and spread ’em,’ I barked.

  Tarquin cowered back. Red, faster off the mark, gave an ecstatic grin.

  ‘Tricked ya!’ I said.

  Faye reached back from the driver’s seat and biffed me around the ear. ‘Scared the shit out of me,’ she said.

  Ken Sproule, true to his grudging word, had managed to get a traffic division squad car placed at my disposal. ‘It’s only to save him the trouble of running his own red lights,’ he explained to the despatch officer. Even on a quiet Monday evening, running red lights was strictly the prerogative of the constabulary.

  As we raced through the intersection outside the Trades Hall, the caretaker was removing the CUSS art exhibition sign. An unprecedented burst of efficiency from Bob Allroy. One less speech for me to write.

  On my lap in the front seat was a black plastic bin-liner. ‘What’s in the bag?’ Ken said as I emerged from the toilet in the police garage, tucking my shirt into my pants. The hundred-dollar bills that had been pressed against my skin were as soft as suede and I had inky smudges like tread marks on my spare tyre. ‘Dirty laundry,’ I said.

  Faye nosed her Laser back into the kerb. The boys got out and extended their attention to the figure in blue behind the wheel of the police car. His sunglasses were the same kind as Spider’s. I was beginning to think that the Police Cooperative Credit Union owned shares in Ray-Ban. ‘This officer is going to drive us to the airport,’ I told Red. ‘Hop in.’

  Tarquin, green with envy, demanded to be allowed to come along for the ride. ‘Next time,’ I said. ‘But you can sit in the back seat for a minute while I talk to your mum.’

  Prompted by my remark on the phone, Faye had successfully grilled the boys on the true reason for our flying visit to Artemis Prints. She’d followed up with a call to Claire. ‘She didn’t sound very impressed, Murray,’ she said. ‘She thinks you took advantage of her better nature. She was quite keen on you, you know. For a while. But I’m afraid you’ve blown it. So what’s all this about friends of yours with a forged Drysdale? And what’s that smell?’

  A proper answer to those questions would take three days, a whiteboard, a flow chart and a breach of confidence. I gave Faye the thirty-second version. ‘Wow,’ she said, mentally reaching for her keyboard.

  ‘This is absolutely not for publication,’ I warned. ‘Within the life of this government.’ The money in the bag in my hot little hand, of course, I did not mention.

  ‘Look!’ called Tarquin. He’d pulled something out of
a box on the back seat of the prowl car and was waving it out the window. It was a deep red stick of waxed paper about as long as my arm. ‘Extra-length dynamite!’

  It wasn’t, but it might as well have been. It was an emergency flare. Two kilograms of compacted magnesium with a ring-pull activator cap. I reached over and deftly relieved Tarquin of its possession. ‘My wrist,’ he squealed. ‘You’ve broken my wrist.’

  In what seemed like no time at all, we were barrelling down the Tullamarine freeway with the roof lights flashing, the siren wailing and Constable Speedy Gonzales of the Accident Appreciation Squad making the rest of the traffic look like it was standing still. ‘I’m sorry your visit was so boring,’ I told Red. ‘Next time, we’ll do something more interesting. Go fishing, maybe. And we’ll definitely have that pizza, I promise.’

  Speedy dropped us at the terminal with ten minutes to flight time. ‘Told ya,’ I informed Red, although we were too late to get him a window seat. We embraced at the departure gate. ‘See you later, Dad,’ he said. ‘Sorry about busting the picture.’

  ‘Do something for me,’ I asked. ‘Tell your mother I’ve got a new girlfriend.’

  ‘You haven’t really?’ The kid squinted at me dubiously. ‘Have you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But you never know your luck. And don’t mention the dead body. Or the snake. Or the painting. Or the police car. Or the dynamite.’ I started to reach into the plastic garbage bag, thought better of it and fished a twenty out of my wallet. ‘In case you need a beer on the plane,’ I said. ‘And your teeth still look fine to me.’

  We embraced again. Then he was gone.

  If anyone needed a beer it was me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I found an airport eatery with a tray-race and a neon sign that read Altitude Zero. I got myself a tray and ate something they claimed was lasagne. Ate it all. Right down to the plate. That’s how hungry I was.

  It was eleven before I’d got a cab back to the Arts Centre, picked up the Charade, put the black plastic bag under the seat and drove home. Home sweet lonesome home. I stepped inside the front door and reached for the light switch. Intuition stopped my hand stopped in mid-movement. I bent my head to the darkness of the hall and listened. The muted rustle of paper. An infinitely faint flush of light beneath the door into the living room. An electrical charge in the atmosphere. Someone was in the house. My hand went sweaty around the black bag.

  Streetlight flowed through a gap in my bedroom curtains. Nothing out of order there. I flicked the money under the bed. The only thing in the room vaguely resembling a weapon was the bedside lamp. It was either that or a lumpy pillow. With the lamp cord wrapped around my wrist, I advanced noiselessly down the hall, put my shoulder to the door and pushed it open.

  Claire was lying on the couch, her red hair lit by the feeble fluorescence emanating from the kitchen nook. She looked up over the top of an open book. ‘Pretty dense,’ she said. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.

  ‘You’ll ruin your eyesight.’ I knelt on the floor and plugged in the lamp. ‘How did you get in?’ Not that I was complaining.

  ‘Your security is abysmal,’ she said. ‘But your friends are terrific. Faye gave me the key. She also told me what’s been going on. I thought I’d save you the price of a lunch.’

  The face of Sister Mary Innocent flashed before me and dissolved. ‘Don’t go away,’ I said. ‘I’ve just got to take a quick shower.’

  ‘Not a cold one, I hope,’ said Claire.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Metternich was on the floor and Claire was in my bed. Luckily, I’d changed the sheets. I do that every time I get a new job. ‘I don’t know about this, Murray,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither.’ I dropped my towel to the floor and she could see that I was lying. I lay down beside her and put my head between her breasts, my ear over her heart. It didn’t hurt at all.

  Few things remain secret for long in the modern office. Even through two plate-glass walls I could read Angelo Agnelli’s face like the fine print on a rent-a-car contract. If Ange had got any sun while he was inspecting those mountain lakes, it wasn’t showing in his complexion.

  My boss’s ashen face wasn’t the first reading I’d done that morning. Over a two-egg breakfast with Claire, I’d taken in the headlines. The Age, doing its best at broadsheet restraint, led with KARLCRAFT DEFAULT PROMPTS OBELISK SUICIDE. The Sun concentrated on the human interest angle with LOVE NEST DEATH PACT. Faye’s piece on the front page of the Business Daily took a more soberly fiscal line.

  FUNDS SINK IN WAKE OF LIQUIDITY DRAIN.

  Agnelli had read them, too. They were spread across his desk in front of him. He’d been sitting there, staring down at them, for what felt like a very long time. I knew that because I’d been watching him ever since he’d arrived. He told Trish he was not to be disturbed, shut his door and sank into his seat like a condemned man assessing the comfort of the electric chair.

  A minister is rarely alone and almost never lost in silent contemplation. It was a sight to behold. From time to time, Angelo’s leonine head would rise and he would peer over at me. I was pretending to read Craft Annual. His hand would extend towards the phone, hover, then withdraw. His fingertips would drum on the desktop. His gaze would again lower.

  Eventually, the suspense got too much for me. Undeterred by Trish’s gorgon bark, I invited myself into the ministerial presence. ‘How was the water?’ I said. ‘Dam and be damned, as they say in Tasmania, eh?’

  Angelo broke off from his self-guided tour of purgatory and regarded me bleakly. ‘Damned’s the word,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

  Angelo Agnelli was not a bad man. He was no better or no worse than he ought to be. He was vain and his ambition exceeded his abilities. So what? In a politician these are not failings but the minimum requirements for the job. Why else do it? Angelo was a minister because enough people thought he should be one. Those people, for better or worse, were my people. Perhaps they didn’t know Angelo quite as well as I did. But they had not entirely misjudged him. He was occasionally a fool, but he was not an idiot. He could be petty, but he was rarely malicious. Others, perhaps, could do his job as well, or even better. But it was Angelo, not others, who signed my pay cheque at the end of the week.

  If there was to be a pay cheque. Just as well I’d taken out insurance.

  I did as I was bid and sat down. The glorious morning sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows might as well have been acid rain. Angelo stared at it in blank-faced silence for a long moment.

  Then he rapped abruptly on his desk as though calling his internal caucus to order. ‘About your future here,’ he said. ‘Things have not necessarily transpired as entirely advantageously as initially anticipated.’ He sounded like the freshly-mouldering Hirohito announcing the capitulation of Japan.

  ‘You’re not satisfied with my performance?’ I asked.

  Now that Ange had set his course, he had no intention of allowing himself to be distracted. ‘I was going to tell you about something today,’ he said. ‘Get your input and so forth. But events appear to have overtaken me.’

  He slapped the papers on his desk with the back of his hand. He stood up. It was getting momentous. He began to address me as though I was a plenary session of state conference. ‘I am responsible…’ he began.

  His mouth, unaccustomed to this phrase, did not know what to do next. He began again. ‘A situation has arisen…’ That was better. ‘A situation has arisen whereby it may be possible for me to be seen to be responsible for the diminution of a significant component of the party’s campaign funds.’ There, he’d said it.

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘How could a situation like that have come about?’

  ‘Against my better judgment,’ he said. ‘I allowed myself to be persuaded to become involved in the affairs of the finance committee.’ He didn’t say who had done the persuading. My preferred candidate was the invisible little Angelo sitting on his shoulder, the one in the red suit with the horns and ta
il.

  ‘A bad call was made. The long and short of it is that as a consequence of subsequent events, events beyond my control…’ He glared down at the newspapers with an expression he’d borrowed from Charlton Heston for the occasion. ‘I am no longer able to confirm your ongoing employment. As soon as the implications of this situation become more widely appreciated, my position will no longer be tenable. In fact, I will have no option but to tender my own…’ He searched for the word. He didn’t have far to look. It was on the tip of his tongue. ‘Resignation.’

  For the sake of Angelo’s finer feelings, I feigned surprise. ‘Really!’ I said. ‘Is it that bad?’

  As ideas went, it was worse than bad. Resignation would be an admission of culpability. A free ride for the opposition. A step closer to power for the true grafters. The smug, despicable, self-serving, incompetent, sanctimonious blue-bloods of the old-school-tie brigade. The enemies of the human race. The Liberals. The ice was thin enough beneath the government without the heat given off by Angelo Agnelli sweating over his failures.

  ‘I’m a little confused here.’ As I spoke, I reached across Agnelli’s desk and drew the phone towards me. ‘It was my understanding that finance committee affairs were Duncan Keogh’s responsibility.’ Agnelli’s phone was as state-of-the-art as the desk it sat on. ‘Shouldn’t we hear what Duncan has to say about all this?’

  Before Agnelli could stop me, I pecked out Keogh’s number and pushed the hands-free button. The speaker went brr-brr and Keogh’s irritable hello came down the line, loud and clear. ‘Murray Whelan here, Duncan,’ I said. ‘Calling from Angelo Agnelli’s office.’ My call sign.

  Agnelli, exhausted from the unaccustomed rigours of self-examination, slumped back into his chair and buried his head in his hands.