on city planning. Try to keep it as general as you can to start with, okay? No cross-examination. Ask him what he thinks of the Planning Appeals Board, how attractive is Melbourne to developers, that sort of thing. Work him around to 1984. See if the bile surfaces.’
‘Can I wear a hat with a little Press card in the band?’
‘Only if that’s all you wear. They say his second wife liked a bit of rough trade. New one’s probably the same.’
I had to announce myself into a microphone behind a grille next to a door set in a two-metre wall. The door clicked open immediately. Beyond was a short brick path flanked by cumquat trees clipped into perfect balls. It led to a two-storey mock-Georgian structure painted to look like a down-at-heel Roman palazzo.
The front door opened when I was a couple of metres away. It was a woman in her late thirties, dark, pretty in a nervous way. She was dressed for dry sailing: boat shoes, white duck trousers, striped top, little kerchief at the throat.
‘Good morning,’ she said. She had a professional smile, like an air hostess or a car hire receptionist. ‘I’m Jackie Pixley. Come in. Kevin’s just having a drink before lunch. He’s not supposed to. He’s had a bypass, you know.’
It was 11.30 a.m.
We went through a hallway into a huge sitting room with french doors leading out to a paved terrace. An immaculate formal garden led the eye to the view of the bay. It was its usual grey, sullen winter self.
There were two sets of leather chairs grouped around massive polished granite pedestals with glass tops. We went around the setting on the left and though a door into another large room. This one was panelled floor to ceiling in dark wood. A snooker table with legs like tree trunks dominated the room. Against the far wall was a bar that could seat about twenty. Behind it, mirrored shelves held at least a hundred bottles and dozens of gleaming glasses. The top shelf appeared to have every malt whisky made.
Seated behind the bar was Kevin Pixley. I remembered his press photographs of a decade before: built like an old-time stevedore, strong square face, dark hair brushed straight back, oddly delicate nose and mouth. The man behind the bar was a shrunken and blurred version of the one in those pictures. He was tanned like his wife but the colouring looked unhealthy on him. In spite of the warmth of the room, he was wearing a bulky cream sweater. He leant over the counter and put out a hand.
‘Jack Irish,’ he said. ‘Spit of your old man. He was one of the hardest bastards ever to pull on a Fitzroy guernsey.’
We shook hands. I used to get a lot of this kind of thing when I was younger. It always embarrassed me.
‘Sit,’ he said. ‘What’ll it be?’ There was a tic at the corner of his left eye.
I said beer and he slid along to a proper pub beer tap. His stool was on wheels. I caught sight of the back of a wheelchair sticking out from the corner of the bar.
‘Something for you, madam?’ Pixley asked. I realised his wife was still standing in the doorway.
‘Not just yet, thanks,’ she said. ‘We’ll be lunching at twelve-thirty, Kevin. I’m going shopping. Goodbye, Mr Irish.’
‘Pretty economically done, eh,’ said Pixley, putting down a beer with a head like spun candy. ‘I’ve got my instructions, you’ve got your marching orders.’ He took a swallow of the colourless liquid in his own glass. There was just a hint of a tremble in his hand as he raised it. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘why are you snooping around for Ms Linda Hillier? Didn’t I used to see your name in the papers defending criminal slime?’
‘This is just a little job Linda thinks a lawyer might be useful for. I’m not quite sure why. Did she tell you what it’s about?’
‘Something about planning. Sounded like a cock and bull story to me.’
He finished his drink and turned to the serving counter.
He took down a bottle of Gilbey’s gin and poured half a glass. Then he added a dash of tonic and stirred the mixture with a big finger.
‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘I’m not supposed to drink. Fuck ’em. What else is there?’ He took a sip and licked his lips. ‘She thought a lawyer might be useful, hey? Be the first time. Cabinet was full of bloody suburban lawyers. Think they’re the bloody chosen race.’
‘We’re looking at decisions like the one to close the Hoagland estate,’ I said. ‘It leaked out in May 1984. We’re interested in what happened in Cabinet.’
Pixley put his glass on the bar, put his elbows on the counter and looked me in the eyes.
‘This is about Yarrabank, right? What’s the shithole going to be called now?’
‘Yarra Cove,’ I said.
‘Yarra fucking Cove. That what it’s about?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you lot trying to do?’
‘It’s just a general piece of planning.’
He gave me a smile of pure disbelief. ‘Planning shit, Jack,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dealing with the fucking media for forty years. Ms Hillier thought she’d have a better chance of getting me to tip a bucket if she sent you.’ He leant forward until his face was a handspan from mine. ‘I’ve got it, haven’t I?’
I sat back on my stool. There wasn’t going to be a general discussion about planning. ‘Well, I suppose there’s a public service element in shafting the shaftworthy.’
Pixley laughed, a throat-clearing sound. ‘I can think of a couple of dozen shaftworthies,’ he said. ‘So ask me a question.’
I took out my notebook. ‘Who made the decision to close Hoagland?’
He shook his head in mock admiration. ‘You’ve got good timing, Jack. I was looking at ’84 in my diaries the day before yesterday. The answer is Lance Pitman. He convinced the Premier that shutting the hellhole was a good idea. Stop all the publicity about rapes and fires and general mayhem in the place. Thought he had it all stitched up, usual breezy fait a-fucking-ccompli style. Then he got to Cabinet and some people weren’t happy.’
‘But the Premier overruled them?’
‘No. Harker didn’t try too hard to get his way. There wasn’t a decision taken then. Pitman looked like he’d been bitten in a blow job. He couldn’t believe Harker wouldn’t push it through.’
Pixley paused to drink. ‘Stage two. After the meeting, someone leaked it that Cabinet had approved closing the place. Next afternoon, we had the usual rent-a-lefty crowd outside Parliament screaming “Save Hoagland”. Bloody unions making threats. And some cop jockey rides his horse over a twat in a wheelchair.’
‘So at that point the Premier could simply have said it wasn’t going to happen? Hadn’t been approved by Cabinet.’
‘And that’s what he was going to say, mate. That’s what I advised him to do. I heard him tell Pitman that was what he was going to do. He was nervous as hell about the protests. Never expected a reaction like that. Walking up and down in his office saying, “That fucking little bitch”. We had an election coming up, all the bleeding hearts in the party on the phone to him saying we had to soften our image after the way we chainsawed the bloody power workers. Last thing anyone wanted was all the clergy and the social welfare industry getting on heat. Next thing you find bloody independents coming up in the marginals like pricks at a pyjama party. What Harker was scared of was that the party would lose the election and blame it on him closing bloody Hoagland. He wasn’t going to close it in a fit.’
‘But he did?’
‘Well, everything changed in a flash when the Jeppeson woman got hit by that prick.’
‘What happened in Cabinet?’
‘The woman was running the whole protest single-handed. We didn’t know that. Once she was gone, it just fizzled out. Meantime, Pitman’s people are putting it around that the Premier’s authority is on the line, battle for control of Cabinet, leadership challenge brewing, all that sort of shit.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Harker jumped on all the people who’d opposed closing Hoagland. We had a Cabinet meeting and now everybody’s crapping on about we can’t have mob rule, need a show of support for the Premier, in the public interest to close the dungheap anyway, that sort of shit.’
‘So Lance Pitman won.’
