The Brush-Off mw-1 Read online

  A circle of faces flashed before me. Fletcher faces. Noel Webb’s face. Denied his mercenary price, Spider had gone over to the enemy. Or worse. A set-up all along. The tough men of the district had found some fresh meat. Round and round I spun, all the while attempting to wrestle the bottle from beneath the folds of my coat. Dizzy, strait-jacketed, sweaty with panic. That’s when I woke up.

  Both the Sunday papers had given the Suicide in the Moat story a run on page three. Both featured Salina Fleet in her widow’s weeds, wistfully gazing at one of Marcus Taylor’s sketches like it was the shroud of Turin. I took fresh croissants back to the house for Red’s breakfast and rang Ken Sproule.

  He’d seen the paper. ‘As predicted,’ he said. ‘Angelo can stop peeing his pants.’ Despite his crack at Agnelli, Sproule had thought it worth keeping his own ear to the ground. ‘This suicide stuff ’s a load of crap. They found bruising to the back of the skull consistent with a fall. The cops tend to think he was walking along the parapet, tripped over, knocked his head and fell in.’

  ‘What about the manifesto?’

  ‘Could mean anything. Or nothing. The fact that it was found on the body doesn’t necessarily make it a suicide note. But an anguished suicide makes far better copy than a clumsy drunk. Particularly with the girlfriend pushing that line. You watch. By this time next week, he’ll be a great unrecognised talent and his work will start turning up in the auction houses. Not a bad looker, the girlfriend, eh? She’s on some committee at the ministry, you know.’

  ‘While you’re on the line,’ I changed tack, ‘I met Lloyd Eastlake last night. What’s a hot shot like him doing on a minor policy committee like Cultural Affairs? He fits that scene like a pacer at a pony club.’

  ‘Parliamentary ambitions,’ Sproule said. ‘Same reason anyone gets themselves onto a policy committee. If you’re not a union official, it’s the best way to get yourself noticed, find out how things work. My guess is that Eastlake has targeted the arts to build a profile as something other than just another penny-ante money man.’

  ‘He didn’t look too penny-ante to me.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve led a sheltered life, Murray. That chauffeur-driven stuff might impress his investors, but it doesn’t mean much in the big picture. For every Alan Bond or Robert Holmes a Court, there’s a hundred Lloyd Eastlakes. They’re a sign of a buoyant economy, springing up like mushrooms after rain. We need them to make the system work. But don’t confuse Eastlake with serious money. You could probably count his millions on one hand.’

  ‘Not a bad result for a humble chippie, though.’ I ashed my cigarette in a saucer, sipped cold instant coffee from a cracked cup and wondered what I’d be doing if I had even a lousy one million dollars. ‘So why does he want to get into parliament?’

  ‘Why does anyone? If we psychoanalysed every parliamentary candidate we’d have full nut-houses and empty legislatures.’

  An operator like Ken Sproule could never be taken on face value. He could be poisoning the wells. He could be giving me the good oil. But he was right about one thing. In our line of work, it was best not to think too much about people’s motives.

  ‘Tell me something else,’ I said. Since Ken was in a talkative mood, the least I could do was listen to him. ‘What’s the story on this Centre for Modern Art acquisition? Three hundred thousand dollars was a pretty generous grant, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Sproule. ‘If I start to background you on last year’s grants, you’ll be pestering me every five minutes.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Ken,’ I said. ‘Angelo’s got to live with this decision, so I might as well know the reasoning behind it.’

  ‘What’s to tell? The CMA applied for funding. The Visual Arts Advisory Panel recommended the application be approved. Gil Methven accepted the recommendation. End of story.’

  ‘I might have lived a sheltered life,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t come down in the last shower. Eastlake is chairman of both the CMA and the Visual Arts Advisory Panel.’

  ‘So what? Eastlake absented himself from the chair and left the room while his panel voted on the grant.’ This was no more than the standard procedure for fending off any suggestion of conflict of interest.

  ‘Eastlake’s committee could only recommend the grant. Ultimate approval lay with the minister.’

  ‘You trying to make a point here, Murray?’

  ‘It’s a big grant. Lloyd Eastlake must have done a lot of arm-twisting to convince Gil to approve it.’

  ‘Gil agreed to provide half the funds if the CMA could find the other half. He didn’t think they’d be able to raise that sort of dough for an unknown artist. But Eastlake came up with the money and Gil had no option but to keep his part of the bargain. The Centre for Modern Art is Eastlake’s main hobby horse, but he wears a lot of other hats. Not much point in putting the chairman of the Cultural Affairs Policy Committee offside, not with the friends Lloyd Eastlake has in the unions.’

  ‘His financial clients?’

  ‘Eastlake has been dealing with the unions since back when he was in the building game,’ said Sproule. ‘What with all these mergers and amalgamations, some unions have found themselves sitting on sizeable assets, as well as having to manage their members’ superannuation funds. They need financial expertise. The word got around that Eastlake had the magic touch and he ended up holding the kitty for quite a few of the comrades. You ever heard of Obelisk Trust? That’s Eastlake.’

  ‘And Obelisk donated the CMA’s half of the purchase price for this picture they’re buying?’

  ‘Correctomundo.’

  ‘Helping an art gallery to buy a painting hardly seems the ideal way for an outfit like Obelisk to target its sponsorship money,’ I said. ‘Isn’t Eastlake just using union money to buy himself a bit of kudos with the art crowd?’

  ‘Possibly. He’s also engaging in a bit of mutual pocket pissing with Max Karlin. Obelisk has a lot of money riding on the Karlcraft project and paying top dollar for one of Max’s pictures could be construed as a gesture of confidence in the project, a way of shoring up the commitment of other investors.’

  At last we were getting to the nub of it. ‘In other words, the Ministry for the Arts has just spent three hundred thousand dollars of public money to massage one of Lloyd Eastlake’s investments.’

  ‘Not just Eastlake’s, pal. We’re all in this. The Karlcraft Centre project is currently employing a small army of construction workers, most of them union members. It’s spending money on everything from cement to door knobs, doing its bit for the local economy. When it’s up and running, it’ll revitalise much of the central business district, create hundreds of retail jobs and generate millions in government revenues. Putting the arts to work lubricating that process is a job well done, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Who was I to demur? I told Ken Sproule I owed him a lunch and rang off. ‘Wakey, wakey, hands off snakey,’ I called through Red’s door. ‘We aren’t going to get much quality time together if you sleep all day.’

  He got up and went straight around to Tarquin’s place. By the time I’d finished breakfast and read the papers it was getting on for ten o’clock. I found the card with Eastlake’s phone numbers on it and looked at it for while, thinking about the story Giles Aubrey had told me.

  Like old Giles said, the genie was out of the bottle. Routine police procedures to identify Marcus Taylor would inevitably connect him with Victor Szabo. Shit, it had taken me about five minutes. Aubrey was in a confessional mood. Sooner or later, the whole thing would start to come unravelled. Spending public money on art was risky enough. Spending it on a fake would make us look like idiots, unfit to govern. Angelo would be directly in the firing line. A way would need to be found quietly to scotch the whole thing. I called Eastlake on his mobile and told him I’d appreciate an opportunity to talk to him about the Szabo acquisition at his earliest convenience.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Looking out for Angelo’s interest PR-wise.’ Ex
actly. Eastlake said he was on his way to the Toorak Road Deli and suggested I join him there.

  I went up the back lane and stuck my head in Faye and Leo’s kitchen door. Faye had her hands in the sink and Leo had his head in the fridge. ‘Where’s the cake?’ he said. The boys were on the floor glued to the television. There were no cartoons at that hour and they were reduced to watching a rural affairs documentary on mad cow disease.

  ‘That reminds me,’ I told Red. ‘You’d better ring your mother.’

  ‘It’s right in front of you,’ said Faye. ‘So, Murray, what do you think of Claire? Tarquin, turn that TV off. We’re going in ten minutes.’ The Curnows, it transpired, were about to leave for Leo’s mother’s seventieth birthday party and would be out all day.

  ‘Come and ring your mother.’ I dragged Red out the back door. ‘Then I’ll show you where the rich people live.’

  The rich people live in Toorak. Skirting the city centre, we crossed the river and headed into its leafy precincts. In hushed cul-de-sacs and meandering avenues, we peered and craned like tourists at the mansions of the filthy rich. Sydney, I informed Red, had plenty of fat cats and flash rats. But for your genuine, copper-bottomed blue-blood, you couldn’t go past Toorak.

  Cruising past the French Provincial farmhouses and Californian haciendas, the ivied walls and gravelled driveways, we drove the Charade down Toorak Road, a street where all the shops are boutiques and even a carton of milk costs more. The Deli was at the city end, a see-and-be-seen place with Porsches at the kerb and fourteen different kinds of freshly squeezed juice. Eastlake’s Mercedes was parked across the road, between a red convertible Volkswagen with an Airedale terrier on the back seat and a Volvo station wagon with P-plates and surfboards on the roof rack.

  Spider Webb was standing beside the Merc, looking into the window of a menswear shop called Pour Homme. We parked further down the block, outside one of those places that sells Groucho Marx lamp stands, pink neon telephones and musical birthday cards. A clip-joint for rich kids. Red lit up at the sight of it, so I peeled off ten dollars. Take your time, I told him. And if you shoplift, don’t get caught.

  The Deli was somebody’s gold mine. Cappuccinos to the gentry. Pain au chocolat with the accent on the accent. Mobile phones in clear view. Blondes with perfect hair and beesting lips. Jewish husbands with melancholy expressions and big gold Rolexes. Lawyers in leisure-wear.

  Lloyd Eastlake was in his element, sitting in a prime booth wearing tennis whites with navy piping. Sitting opposite him was a well-groomed woman in her late forties with big sunglasses and a brittle mouth. The sunglasses were pushed up on top of hair that had the panel-beaten finish rich women spend a fortune acquiring in the taxidermy salons of society hairdressers.

  Eastlake saw me enter and waved me over. ‘Murray Whelan,’ he said. ‘My wife, Lorraine.’

  So this was the boss’s daughter whose hand had given young Lloyd his leg up in business. Lorraine looked like she’d been repenting ever since, consoled only by the diversion of spending as much of his money as possible. She was just leaving.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting your game,’ I said sociably, an obvious tennis reference.

  ‘Lorraine doesn’t play,’ said Eastlake. ‘Do you, darling?’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Lorraine. She’d forgotten my name already. As she headed towards the exit, a ruddy faced man with real estate written all over him moved to fill the vacuum. Eastlake deflected him with an easy gesture, signalled for more coffee and told me to sit down. ‘You don’t look too happy,’ he said genially. ‘Angelo not paying you enough?’

  ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ I said, getting straight down to it before some social fly buzzed over and landed on us. ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘Have we?’ His expression brightened with amusement at my earnestness.

  ‘You and me both,’ I said. ‘The Szabo isn’t authentic. I’m afraid you’ve been had.’

  His eyes narrowed, assessing me anew. ‘You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel.’ His tone was still playful on the surface, but there was a cool undercurrent. ‘Didn’t know you were such a scholar.’

  ‘I was up Eltham way yesterday and I met someone called Giles Aubrey. He used to be Victor Szabo’s dealer.’

  At the mention of Aubrey’s name, Eastlake leaned forward, beginning to take me seriously. ‘Giles Aubrey,’ he said. ‘There’s a blast from the past. So, tell me, what’s the old bugger been whispering in your ear?’

  ‘He said Our Home was painted by someone else.’

  ‘Oh, did he just?’ Beneath the flippancy was a tinge of irritation he couldn’t quite hide. ‘Did he say who?’

  ‘Szabo’s illegitimate son,’ I said. ‘Marcus Taylor.’ Eastlake gave me a blank stare. ‘The guy they fished out of the National Gallery moat.’ It all sounded a bit far-fetched. ‘Anyway, that’s what he told me.’

  Eastlake drew back and deliberately widened his eyes, like I was pulling his leg. When he saw that I was serious, the amusement drained from his expression. He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin, as though digesting the significance of what I had just told him.

  A waiter arrived and put cappuccinos in front of us. Eastlake studied me carefully, as though attempting to discern my reliability. Then he made up his mind. Picking up his spoon, he leaned forward. When he spoke, it was in hushed, confidential tones. ‘Can you keep a secret, Murray?’

  I didn’t reply, but he was welcome to continue.

  ‘I’m not the one being had,’ he grinned. ‘You are.’

  Eastlake built a floating island of sugar on the froth of his cappuccino and watched it slowly sink. ‘Giles Aubrey is a bitter and twisted old man,’ he said. ‘And he’s been spinning you a line. I don’t suppose you happened to mention to him how much we’re paying Karlin for the picture, did you?’

  ‘I might have said something about it,’ I allowed.

  ‘And that’s when he came out with his story?’

  ‘He was very convincing.’

  ‘Aubrey can be, by all accounts. You wouldn’t be the first he’s taken in. Lots of authentic Szabo embroidery, I imagine. This bit about the suicide in the National Gallery moat, this whatsisname…’

  ‘Marcus Taylor.’

  ‘That’s a nice topical touch. Aubrey saw the story on the news, no doubt, and grabbed the opportunity to make a little mischief.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?

  ‘Ancient history,’ said Eastlake. ‘Old wounds. Aubrey genuinely believed in Victor Szabo, but he never succeeded in making anything of his career. Szabo probably even cost him money. Seeing the sort of figures Szabo’s pictures are currently fetching must really piss him off. But the money, I suspect, is the least of it. He’s jealous of Fiona Lambert getting all the credit for securing Szabo’s posthumous reputation. It was Fiona who found Our Home in Karlin’s collection, pegged it as a benchmark work and suggested that the CMA acquire it. Casting doubts on the authenticity of Our Home would be the perfect way to undermine her reputation.’

  This made a certain amount of sense. Perhaps Aubrey had seized on my phone call as an opportunity to exact a little belated revenge on Fiona Lambert. But that still didn’t explain everything. ‘The drowned guy, Taylor,’ I said. ‘He left a note. A manifesto, the press were calling it. Angelo thought they might beat something up. So I went to his studio yesterday morning, just before Max Karlin’s brunch, and took a look around. He’d painted a perfect copy of Our Home.’

  Eastlake slowly sipped his cappuccino, studying me over the rim of his cup. ‘You’re quite the eager beaver, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ I admitted. ‘It just seemed like an odd coincidence, given what Aubrey told me later.’

  ‘It’s not unusual, you know, for younger artists to make copies of landmark paintings. Just proves what I said. Our Home is a masterpiece.’

  ‘But Taylor also had a pho
tograph of himself with Victor Szabo. Doesn’t that tend to corroborate Aubrey’s story?’

  Eastlake indulged me, amused by my persistence. ‘I’ve got a picture of myself with the Prime Minister. That doesn’t make me his love child.’

  Put like that, my concerns were all starting to feel a bit farfetched. ‘Looks like I’ve been wasting your time,’ I said, burying my face in my own coffee.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Eastlake. ‘You did the right thing coming to me. We have got a problem. The art world thrives on gossip. Giles Aubrey’s malicious inventions could do a lot of damage.’

  ‘Aubrey can say what he likes,’ I said. ‘But he can’t prove anything. By his own admission, Taylor was the only other person who could confirm his story-and he’s dead.’

  ‘You miss my point,’ said Eastlake. ‘We’re talking perceptions here. The value of a work of art is a fragile abstraction. If word gets around that doubts exist about the authorship of Our Home, similar speculation could easily arise about the integrity of other works in Max Karlin’s collection. Suggest that one picture isn’t what it’s purported to be, people might wonder about the others. A person in your position, close to the Minister for the Arts, has a certain credibility. What you say gets heard, passed on, amplified.’

  ‘I think I understand the situation, Lloyd,’ I said pointedly, resenting the implication that I needed to be warned not to go blabbing Aubrey’s story all over town. ‘But I’m more concerned about potential embarrassment to Angelo than the market value of Max Karlin’s art collection. In either case, the question is to make sure Aubrey stays quiet. He agreed to keep the story to himself yesterday, but who knows how long that will last.’