The Brush-Off (35 page)

I hurried downstairs, gripping the banister.

Droplets of moisture flashed in the sunlight. Sprinklers played across the lawns of the Domain. Children ran between the trees squirting each other with water pistols. Senior citizens at picnic tables poured streams of steaming tea from thermos flasks. After what felt like an eternity trapped in that broom closet, my bladder was about to explode.

Tilted forward at the waist like a particularly obsequious Japanese, I scuttled across Domain Road and cast about for a public convenience of some description. The only facility in sight was a shoulder-high bed of red and yellow canna lilies. Advancing into its leafy interior, I proceeded to irrigate its tuberous root structure.

Below the waist, I sighed with relief. Above the neck, I struggled to make sense of all that I had just observed. Some things were crystal clear. Others were murky and obscure. I had a growing sense of dismay and responsibility.

That Fiona Lambert was some piece of work. And she definitely had Lloyd Eastlake's measure. Our Man in the Arts, puffed up with smug vanity, was a soft target. Particularly by the time Fiona Lambert had finished working her charms.

Scam one was the CUSS set-up. Eastlake, doing his girlfriend a favour, had put the art investment business of the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme her way. This entailed a conflict of interest on his part, both as a director of the CUSS and as chairman of the Centre for Modern Art, but he had probably done no more than what a thousand other company directors did every day of the week. His hot-shot lover, however, had taken full advantage of the opportunity to slip the unsuspecting CUSS an entirely fabricated art collection. The sheer scale of her audacity was staggering.

Scam two was the Szabo deal. Eastlake, persuaded that
Our Home
was an absolute must for the CMA collection, had exerted his influence with both the government and Obelisk to fund its purchase. Fiona, meanwhile, had forced Max Karlin to sell the picture and cut herself in for a piece of the action.

My presence within the stand of lilies, I was suddenly aware, had not passed unnoticed. An amorous couple reclining on the lawn nearby were beginning to cast hostile glances towards where my head extended above the leaf line. I turned my back to them, lest they get the wrong idea.

Was it really possible that Lambert could have got away with her CUSS fraud if not for the accidental depredations of a pair of skylarking ten-year-olds? Would Taylor's forgeries have remained undetected in the face of public scrutiny? And why had Taylor been colluding with Lambert? According to Giles Aubrey, he hated her guts. Had the whole Szabo–Taylor story been a product of Aubrey's notorious tendency to misrepresentation? Or had Marcus Taylor eventually become reconciled to his father's ambitious young bit of cheesecake? Or had his broker, Salina Fleet, handled customer relations? Was it possible that he had no idea that Lambert was the buyer of his ‘appropriations'?

Did canna lilies, I wondered, benefit from the occasional dose of concentrated uric acid? This slash was taking on the proportions of an Olympic event. Marcus Taylor. Perhaps he, too, tried to piss in somebody's garden. Maybe he thought he'd found the perfect way to avenge himself on Fiona Lambert. Maybe she had unwittingly given him the opportunity to engineer her downfall. Maybe he had wanted his forgeries to be discovered, as evidenced by the stamp on the back of
Dry Gully
. But not for the reasons Claire had postulated—not out of a forger's vanity—but to discredit and destroy Fiona Lambert.

For months he had toiled in obscurity, producing an entire collection of fake art works in his ratty studio at the old YMCA. For months he had bided his time, waiting for just the right moment. For the moment when he could reveal that his perfectly innocent post-modern tributes had knowingly been passed off as the real thing by Fiona Lambert.

But something even better had come along. The CMA's acquisition of
Our Home
. An irresistible opportunity—not just to avenge himself on Lambert—but to strike a blow against his dead father as well. Frustrated by his inability to obtain anything but the most meagre recognition of his own achievements as an artist—a paltry grant can be even more insulting than none at all—Taylor had manufactured a carbon-copy of
Our Home
with the object of compromising the integrity of Victor Szabo's entire artistic output. Oedipus meets Hamlet on the banks of the Yarra.

At long last, the call of nature rang less stridently in my ears. Drained, I parted the broad green leaves of the cannae, stepped back out onto the lawn and gave the scandalised lovers a cheerful wave. Through the trees, I could see the white facade of the Centre for Modern Art. A scenario, part memory, part speculation, began to take shape.

Poor little Marcus Taylor. He really was a fuck-up. He painted his duplicate
Our Home
, but then got pissed and cocky and tipped his hand at the CMA opening. That little performance of his must really have set the cat among the pigeons. No wonder Salina Fleet had looked so nervous when he got up on that table and started waving his arms about. She knew what he was going to say. He'd given her a sneak preview of the notes to his speech a few moments before, out in the back garden.

Fiona Lambert was a cool customer, though. She didn't betray herself, even though she was the one with most at stake. Later that night, while supposedly home in bed, she caught up with Taylor and sunk him and his troublesome plans in the National Gallery moat.

The sky was blue. Birds were singing. The grass was green and cool underfoot. I walked back towards Hope Street, where the Charade was parked, through a beautiful summer afternoon. I wondered how she had done it. How she'd managed to get Marcus Taylor's unconscious body up over the parapet and roll it into the water. Knocking him out would have been the easy part. He was practically legless the last time I'd seen him, staggering down the Domain Road footpath.

His big moment had come to nothing. But he still hadn't played his trump card.
Our Home
Mark 2 was still on its easel back at the YMCA. His day would come. Just you wait, he said. Just you wait.

Through an intermittent stream of traffic, I could see the very spot where I'd heard him mumble those words. Pausing beside an enormous Moreton Bay fig, I leaned against the trunk and recalled the scene.

Taylor coming one way. Me going the other. Up ahead of me, the Botanical Hotel. Ahead of Taylor, Lambert's flat and, a fifteen-minute walk away, his own room in the YMCA. The disappearing tail-lights of Lloyd Eastlake's Mercedes.

Rewind further. Up in the flat. Fiona on the phone. Out the window, standing less than fifty metres from where I was currently standing, also on the phone, Spider Webb.

The Missing Link. I'd been battling to put Spider into the picture. He and Fiona Lambert were, after all, far from a natural pair. But now that I began to put the pieces together, an alliance between the two of them made a certain sort of sense. Each was working Eastlake from a different direction— Spider looking for the main chance, Fiona needing help to work her gold mine.

Spider. Warning me off. Tidying up the loose ends. Loose ends like the fact that Taylor had gone to the bottom of the moat with his keys in his pocket. So somebody had to go back the next morning and retrieve the duplicate Szabo and dispose of the evidence of the Austral forgery factory. Loose ends like the fact that I'd got there first and had to be locked in the basement with Willy the Whale. Loose ends like Salina Fleet.

I thought again of Salina's reaction at the moat. Those frozen expressions on her face, caught by the flashing ambulance light. Shock, panic, fear. Did she guess what had happened? Was her insistence that Taylor had killed himself a hastily improvised way of protecting herself, of demonstrating that she could be trusted to keep silent? And her appearance at the YMCA? Was she acting on her own initiative, hastening to clear out all evidence of Taylor's work? Or was everyone just after Taylor's version of
Our Home
?

Then I had come along, sticking my bib in. Not content to remain locked in the basement of the YMCA, I'd kicked up a racket. When Salina inadvertently released me, I put her on the spot. She was a fast thinker, but not entirely convincing in the clinches. And, by then, I'd seen the picture on the easel in Taylor's studio. By then, I was starting to make a real nuisance of myself. I sought out Giles Aubrey, a man who could be relied on to grab the first opportunity that came his way to stir the pot, and gone running to Eastlake with what he told me. But Eastlake, in turn, told Lambert. So Aubrey had ended up at the bottom of the nearest riverbank with a compound fracture of the
corpus delicti
. At least Sal had the sense to make herself scarce.

As I stood there, concealed by the grey folds of Moreton Bay fig, contemplating my responsibility for Giles Aubrey's death, Fiona Lambert came out of the block of flats. Hands empty, teeth shining, looking exceptionally pleased with herself, she crossed Domain Road and walked towards the Centre for Modern Art.

It was, I decided, time to blow the whistle on Ms Lambert. Get the cops on the case while she still had the hundred grand stashed in her flat. Detective Senior Constable Chris Micaelis would be hearing from me, I resolved, very soon. Just as soon as I'd made a couple of phone calls.

Once Fiona Lambert disappeared into the CMA, I hurried to the Charade and headed back towards the office. It was getting on for 4.30 and the ebb tide of early rush-hour traffic had begun to flow out of the city. Anybody with half a brain had already clocked-off and was headed for the beach.

Something I'd overheard in Fiona Lambert's flat was exercising my mind. The world of high finance was
terra
incognita
. It was time I got hold of a tourist guide. Even as I turned into St Kilda Road, I was pulling up in front of the Travelodge and fishing in my pockets for coins.

I could find only notes. This meant that before I could use the pay-phone, I was compelled to go into the bar and buy myself a drink. A shot of Jamiesons with a beer chaser. I needed to be both alert and relaxed. I fed the change in a phone in the lobby and called the
Business Daily
. ‘You're a finance journalist,' I told Faye Curnow.

‘If that's a news tip,' she said. ‘You're a bit late.'

‘Matter of fact, I do have a tip,' I said. ‘A scoop. But first tell me about Obelisk Trust. It's like a bank or a building society, right? Government guaranteed.'

‘Don't you believe it. High returns, high risk.'

‘And what if I told you that Lloyd Eastlake has been sinking large amounts of Obelisk money into the Karlcraft project without his board's approval?'

‘I'd say that he might well soon regret it. The rumours are flying thick and fast that the banks are about to refuse to roll over Karlin's loans. If that happens, he'll have no alternative but to file for bankruptcy.'

‘How would he go about that?'

It wasn't complicated. ‘You lodge some forms with the Federal Court. A court-appointed trustee moves immediately, shuts the doors and starts liquidating your assets. Your creditors howl like stuck pigs. Then they sit around for the next ten years not getting their money back.'

‘So what would you say if I told you that, even as we speak, Max Karlin's lawyers are approaching the court, bankruptcy forms in hand? And that, further, I've got my life savings in Obelisk Trust.'

‘I'd tell you that if you don't get your money out of Obelisk by close of business tonight, you can probably kiss most of it goodbye. And I'd ask you how reliable is your information about Karlin.'

‘Straight from the horse's mouth.'

‘Then you'd better get off the phone. I've got a story to break, and you've got a hasty withdrawal to make. Thanks for the tip.'

I didn't get much thanks for my next call. In fact, I got a flea in my ear. ‘Murray Whelan here,' I said. ‘Calling from Angelo Agnelli's office.'

‘What now?' barked Duncan Keogh.

This wasn't going to be easy. The last time I'd rung the finance committee chairman, I'd hung up on him. ‘It's about that deposit with Obelisk Trust.'

‘Thought I told you I'd done it.'

‘You did,' I said. ‘Only there's been a bit of a rethink in the strategy department. Angelo wants the funds withdrawn immediately and put back where they were.' Eastlake wasn't the only one who could play at this exceed-your-authority game. ‘Like you said this morning, Duncan. No need to get our shirt-tails in a flap.'

Standing at a pay-phone in the lobby of a budget hotel with a finger in one ear to drown out the muzak bouncing off a tour party of Taiwanese dentists' wives was not the ideal location for a conversation of this nature.

‘You tell Agnelli from me,' said Keogh. ‘That I'm still the finance committee chairman, not some bank clerk, and if he wants something done he should have the courtesy to call me himself, not get his office boy to do it.'

This was great. Keogh had finally decided to grow a backbone. ‘Listen, Duncan…' But Duncan wasn't listening. It was his turn to hang up.

This was not good. I went back into the bar and bought myself another beer. With the option of bluffing Keogh now closed, the only way left to get the party funds out of Obelisk before the balloon went up was to call Agnelli and have him speak to Keogh. That would entail a great deal of explanation. Frankly, given the choice, I'd rather have gone straight back up to F. Lambert's kitchen, stuck my bare hand into her high-speed Moulinex blender and thrown the switch.