LITMIR.BIZ

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September 17, 1998

      ‘Oh my god! He was poisoned?’ Daley Prescott sounded like all his worst fears and a couple of phobias had just invaded his personal space. He looked even worse. Sam was glad Rigby had waited till the man was sitting down before conveying Baird’s suspicions.

      ‘That’s just the pathologist’s preliminary report, Mr Prescott,’ Rigby stated. ‘It is not for general publication. We’ll know more after the autopsy of course, but even if he wasn’t poisoned, the man was certainly beaten.’

      ‘To death,’ Prescott snorted, almost as if Marsden’s death was more of an insult to him, than a tragic end for the professor himself. Prescott swivelled his chair and stared blankly out the window.

      Sam and Rigby, having left the forensics team to finish the crime scene investigation, had agreed it was time to question Prescott about what sort of ‘ramifications’ the murder of one of his colleagues was going to have – apart from the obvious ones – and why he had seen fit to contact the Federal Minister for Cultural Affairs. They had walked the two city blocks from the Library to the Museum’s administrative headquarters on Exhibition Street and now sat with an agitated Daley Prescott in his office on the 18th floor.

      While the Assistant Director tried to collect his thoughts, apparently by rubbing his fingers vigorously across his forehead, Sam gazed jealously out the huge window at the jigsaw of building facades, rooftops and patches of blue sky.

      The view was a far cry from the windowless cubicle she shared with Ben Muldoon. A calendar of the world’s most famous tourist sites, none of which she’d seen in person (nor was she ever likely to given the pathetic state of her savings account), was the only non-work-related item on those dreary blue-felt walls. September was the Pyramids of Giza which, as far as Sam was concerned, couldn’t be further away if they’d been built on Mars.

      ‘This is dreadful.’ Prescott stated the obvious.

      ‘Were you close?’ Rigby asked, completely misunderstanding Prescott’s anxiety. Sam, however, could tell there was little, if anything, personal intruding on the man’s concern.

      ‘Close? No, not really. Not at all, in fact,’ Prescott replied. ‘It’s just that the international repercussions of this are, they’re–’

      ‘You keep saying that,’ Rigby interrupted. ‘What precisely are the repercussions or ramifications of Professor Marsden’s death?’

      ‘I can’t begin to imagine,’ Prescott said, annoyingly, and then frowned. ‘Actually, I think I’m imagining the worst – in every possibly combination.’

      ‘Do you think you could be more specific?’ Sam asked.

      ‘Marsden was on the ICOM committee,’ Prescott stated, as if that explained everything.

      ‘Which is what?’ Rigby asked.

      ‘The International Council of Museums,’ Sam volunteered the information she’d been given by her boss. ‘Melbourne is hosting the triennial conference – next month.’

      ‘Now perhaps you’ll understand why I’m in such a state,’ Prescott explained. ‘We’ve got close to 2000 delegates arriving in just over three weeks. They’re coming from around the country and all over the world. This is a disaster.’

      ‘All over the world? That explains the ‘international’ aspect of the ramifications,’ Rigby noted. He looked at Sam. ‘Probably explains why you’re here too.’

      Sam shrugged. ‘I’m here because the Assistant Director called the Minister. Why exactly did you do that, Mr Prescott?’

      Prescott started rubbing his forehead again. ‘I took one look at Lloyd’s body and realised a thing like this would send the media into a frenzy. I felt I had to act quickly to contain any possible fallout,’ he explained. ‘And the best way to do that was to go right to the top. To the Minister. If Lloyd had died from a stroke, as first thought, then I would simply have apologised for wasting your time. On the other hand if it was murder, which we now know to be the case, then my actions would have been, and in fact are, the right ones to ensure that a lid is kept on this whole affair.’

      Rigby looked unimpressed by Prescott’s logic. ‘Why the Federal Minister?’ he asked.

      ‘This is an international conference, Detective. While it is being hosted by the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne, its success reflects on the entire nation. At the very least this will have a disastrous PR effect on the final preparations, and anything detrimental to the success of this conference is, in my opinion, of federal concern. Also, Jim Pilger is a friend of mine.’ Prescott held up his hand to forestall any snide remarks about nepotism and turned to Sam.

      ‘You are here, Special Detective Diamond. Whatever you may think, that says less about my ‘connections’ than it does about the fact that the Minister shares my concerns in this matter enough to send his representative. And you already know about ICOM ’98, so I assume you have been briefed.’

      ‘Brief being the operative word, Mr Prescott,’ Sam admitted. ‘I do, however, understand your concerns about the likelihood of the media turning this incident into a three-ring circus.

      ‘I am authorised to work with both you and the police,’ Sam glanced at Rigby, ‘to exercise damage control and minimise the fallout. We can’t make this go away, Mr Prescott, but we may be able to obfuscate matters so the media takes little or no interest.’

      ‘Un-bloody-likely,’ Rigby declared.

      ‘I’m afraid I agree with Detective Rigby on that point,’ Prescott’s defeated tone seemed to be saying more than he was.

      ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ Sam asked.

      ‘I believe that Lloyd Marsden’s murder may have been a deliberate act of sabotage,’ Prescott announced.

      ‘Sabotage? Why?’ Rigby was incredulous.

      ‘I don’t know.’ Prescott searched his desk drawer for something. ‘But there are a lot of sick individuals out there.’

      And paranoid ones, Sam thought, leaning forward to inspect the postcard of the museum that Prescott passed across the desk. Typewritten on the back was a limerick:

      You’re failure will be my success

      The confrence will be such a mess

      One by one you will fall

      Till theirs none left at all

      And the hole thing will cause you distress.

      ‘I received that last Wednesday,’ Prescott said.

      ‘And you didn’t call the police?’ Rigby raised an eyebrow. ‘Or ring the Minister?’

      Prescott smiled humourlessly. ‘It is a dreadful limerick with atrocious spelling, but until this morning I thought it was merely a joke in extremely poor taste.’

      ‘They may not be connected,’ Sam said.

      Prescott looked at her as if she was daft. ‘You don’t think ‘one by one you will fall’ is a threat now made manifest by the body of one of my curators lying down there in the library?’

      ‘I’d like to ask you about that,’ Rigby said. ‘I’ll have this analysed.’ He picked the card up by the corner and slipping into his inside jacket pocket.

      ‘Ask me what?’

      ‘What was Marsden doing in the library? Wasn’t the museum closed over a year ago?’

      ‘Closed to the public yes, but the task of moving the collections is monumental and we have many staff, and that included Lloyd, who still spend much of their time in the old building. Our Collection Relocation Department is responsible for the move, but they have to liaise with the curators and collection managers to ensure the safe packing, labelling and cataloguing of all the items. So Lloyd

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