Kick Back

Seven

At two-thirty Wyatt alighted from a tram outside a strip of salons, bookshops and designer-wear showrooms on Toorak Road and walked through to Quiller Place. He wore an overcoat over a casual brown- and grey-flecked woollen suit, white shirt and plain tie. His shoes were brown. It was a suit for any purpose. He might be a professional punter, a businessman, a client keeping an appointment with his lawyer.

He had altered the contours of his face. His hair, normally fine and straw-coloured and pushed indifferently to one side, was now oil-darkened and drawn back close and gleaming against his skull. He had applied a small smudge of soot to the edge of his bony jaw. He wore steel-framed glasses with chipped lenses. The frame was crooked. It was a face of false but compelling and contradictory surfaces.

He walked once down to Quiller Place. It was one block long, ending in a T-junction at each end. There were houses along the northern side, one of them converted into the offices of Finn and the Reid woman. Opposite them were the rear entrances, courtyards and customer-parking areas of the shops on Toorak Road. That was good; the street was a backwater, meaning few potential witnesses. Then Wyatt explored one block north and one block south of Quiller Place, checking for laneway access and dead-end or one-way streets.

At five minutes to three he stopped outside number 5. It was a restored Edwardian house like those on either side of it. The stonework was soft and clean, the woodwork painted in period colours. A cobblestone driveway curved round at the front of the house and there was room for two cars at the side. A car was parked there, a pastel-green Mercedes bearing the plates FINN. The words ‘Finn and Reid, Barristers and Solicitors’ were engraved on a brass plate next to the front door. Anna Reid, Wyatt thought. He didn’t know Finn’s first name.

A smaller sign read ‘Please Enter’. He pushed open the heavy, glossy black door and found himself in a long hallway. The air, centrally heated, smelt of new carpets, paint and furniture polish. A recent injection of money, he thought. Floorboards and heating vents gleamed in the hallway. A telephone chirruped in an end room. He heard expert fingers pause on a computer keyboard. A voice said, ‘Can I help you?’

A receptionist was looking at him from a small carpeted office to the right of the front door. This was the designer-punk end of South Yarra: the receptionist had elaborately untidy black hair and wore black tights and skirt, a striped waistcoat over a scarlet lycra top, silver bracelets, and four silver rings in the cartilage of one ear. She wore plum eyeshadow like a bruising around each eye. She was happily chewing gum and the smile was genuine.

Then, as Wyatt approached her desk, she frowned. She was disconcerted by his crooked glasses and smudged cheek. Her fingers itched to make adjustments. Wyatt said, ‘You were able to squeeze me in for a three o’clock appointment with Mr Finn.’

She snapped her fingers, remembering. ‘Mr Lake?’

‘That’s right.’

An embarrassed half-smile as she looked at a point next to his ear. ‘If you’ll just take a seat in the waiting room? I’ll tell Mr Finn you’re here.’

Wyatt removed his overcoat and stood at the waiting room window, ignoring the Scandinavian-look leather armchairs in the room. He automatically studied the window and ceiling. As he expected, there was an alarm system. In a room somewhere along the corridor, a vigorous male voice talked and laughed. Finn? Was the safe in his office? Would he interview Wyatt there or take him to a consulting room? Whatever, this was all part of filling in the background. Wyatt wanted firsthand knowledge of the layout, an impression of Finn, a feeling about the job itself. If everything seemed right he would call a meeting. It was not a big job, but it was the best he’d been offered in months. If it fell through it wouldn’t be for want of solid groundwork.

He studied the rest of the room. Pale wallpaper, mass-produced prints hanging from an old-style picture rail, empty fireplace, business magazines on a glass-topped table. He returned to the window. A minute later he saw a black Volkswagen slow in the street outside, its turning indicator flashing. It gave way to a passing taxi and pulled into the driveway next to Finn’s Mercedes. A young woman got out, dressed in dark, expensive winter clothes. Wyatt stood at the window’s edge, watching her approach the front door. When he heard her footsteps in the hall he stepped back and began idly flicking through a magazine. The footsteps paused at the waiting-room door. Wyatt looked up, as anyone might. He saw solitary, complicated good looks, curious green eyes, an impression of impatience. Then she was gone and he heard her enter a room somewhere along the corridor. Hobba was right. She was too classy for Max Pedersen.

The receptionist appeared, staring this time at Wyatt’s shoulder. ‘This way, Mr Lake. Mr Finn will see you now.’

Wyatt followed her along the corridor. More evidence of the alarm system. Anna Reid had closed her door. The receptionist stopped at the end office, smiled, extended an arm, and Wyatt entered.

The man behind the massive leather-topped antique desk pushed back and half turned in his swivel chair and got up, his hand outstretched. ‘Mr Lake,’ he said. ‘David Finn. Have a seat.’

Finn was an inch taller than Wyatt, at least six-two, solid, not heavy. He was about fifty and had the blunt look of a man who gets timid clients to the point quickly. He wore an expensive suit, striped cotton shirt and a floppy, hand-tied silk bow tie. A camel hair overcoat hung on a chrome coat rack in one corner. Two stiff modern chairs faced the desk, and a bench under the window supported a fax, a telex, a paging device and two mobile phones. Leather-bound law books sat neatly in white bookshelves. Well-known Boyd and Nolan prints were on the walls. The safe was there, a squat black Chubb set on tiles in the unused fireplace. On the mantelpiece above it were sporting trophies and two small team photographs. No comfortable chairs, no ashtrays, no clutter. It was an odd room, as though furnished absent-mindedly from antique shops and designer showrooms.

Finn shook hands and abruptly sat down. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Lake?’

Wyatt hovered, then sat, hesitant, nervous, on the edge of a stiff chair opposite Finn. If Finn wanted him intimidated, he would be intimidated. In a rush of words he said, ‘I was told you’re the best person to see about problems with building permits.’

Finn straightened invisible papers on his desk. ‘Depends. What sort of problems?’

‘I’m speaking on behalf of others,’ Wyatt said. ‘If what we think is going to happen happens, we’ll be ruined.’

Finn was a busy man. ‘Mr Lake, what exactly is the problem?’

‘I own a bookshop, rare books, two others sell antiques, another runs a print gallery. It’s that sort of area,’ he said apologetically.

Finn nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, we understand the hotel on the corner has applied to extend its licence and build a beer garden and a bigger car park. We’re open on the weekends. That’s when we do most of our business. We don’t want yahoos coming and going. Police breathalysers. People urinating and throwing bottles.’

Finn laced his fingers together and began to recite. ‘The Planning and Environment Act stipulates that anyone has the right to object to building development. You may appeal on social and economic grounds against council decisions to award planning permits. If a developer gets a building surveyor to give the go-ahead under the Building Control Act, you may then take the matter to the civil court.’

Wyatt shifted in his seat. ‘Is it… does it cost a lot?’

Finn swung idly in his chair. ‘Court costs can be high, certainly.’ Then he leaned forward and said, ‘It needn’t get that far.’

Wyatt looked alert.

‘Appeals to council decisions are heard by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal,’ Finn said. ‘Many small objectors use it. It’s not like the normal court system, where if you lose you have to fork out.’

The word ‘lose’ seemed to worry Wyatt. There was silence in the room. After a while Finn said, ‘How’s business?’

‘Business?’ Wyatt said.

‘You know what I mean. High interest rates, limited cash flow-small businesses are failing left, right and centre. Am I right?’

Wyatt was embarrassed.

‘There are ways,’ Finn went on, ‘where you can have cash in hand even if development does go ahead.’

Got you, Wyatt thought.

Finn fiddled with his watch, a chunky, complicated metal and plastic affair decorating his wrist. Wyatt bet that he wore a gold chain, Reeboks and tight jeans on the weekends and drank coffee at sidewalk cafe tables.

‘Once an objection has been lodged,’ Finn continued, ‘developers are very vulnerable. It can take eight months before a case is heard by the Tribunal. Meanwhile costs escalate- interest rates, landholding costs, etcetera, etcetera. You can imagine the mindset of someone in that predicament.’

Mindset. Jesus. Wyatt kept his face polite, expectant, naive.

It seemed to irritate Finn. ‘Mr Lake, I’ll spell it out. In return for withdrawing the objection, developers have been known to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or compromise, or offer work in kind. Perhaps you need a new shop front?’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

Eagerness flickered on Wyatt’s face. But he played responsible again and said, ‘Is that legal?’

‘Depends how you look at it. A persistent prosecutor might do something with it, but why bother? In the long run it will be easier to tighten up the legislation. Wise people are acting now.’

Wyatt was anxious. There was a lot to take in. ‘I’ll have to talk to the others,’ he said.

Finn stood up and looked at his watch. ‘Why don’t you all come in? Say, sometime next week. Bring all relevant documents with you so we can map out a plan of action. I tell you what-if we do decide to go ahead, I won’t bill you for today’s consultation. How does that sound?’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Wyatt said, standing and shaking Finn’s hand.

‘See Amber on your way out. She’ll fix you up with an appointment.’

Wyatt left the room. Finn was already working on something else, scribbling on a pad, frowning. Anna Reid’s door was still closed. Wyatt could hear her murmuring to a client. He made his way to the reception desk. Here Amber watched him get into a tangle buttoning up his coat.

Finally she couldn’t help herself. ‘No offence,’ she said, ‘but there’s a bit of dirt on your cheek.’

‘God, is there?’ Wyatt said. He went out, rubbing at it.

In Toorak Road he telephoned Hobba. ‘So far so good.’

‘You checked it out?’

‘Finn’s bent. Now we’ll check the woman. My room, eight o’clock-but tell Pedersen seven-thirty.’