Shane Maloney - The Brush-Off

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.

‘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.