“A lot of that is Corrin,” Fennell says. “He’s dogged, has an incredible memory, and understands that when you make a documentary like this there’s a tendency for it to be quite an extractive process. It’s important, especially when someone is sharing a terrible moment from their life, that you not only take something but also produce a thing that returns some measure of justice.”

Some people involved chose not to participate, such as McCaughey, while others, including then Victorian minister for the arts Race Mathews (who was also police minister, doubling his involvement), were too elderly and infirm to take part. The NGV did not co-operate. Dogged research also helped: Victoria Police had lost the main file on the case, but the Framed team could retrieve a copy from the partner of someone investigated who had gotten it many years prior under Freedom of Information laws.

As briskly thoughtful as the narrative is – with the approximately 25-minute episode length suggesting the now-familiar podcast structure – the story keeps shape-shifting so that absurdism and loss are mixed, while knowledge and responsibility overlap. At one point Fennell pointedly asks cultural critic Ashley Crawford, until then a drolly entertaining commentator on the saga, whether he actually knows more than he’s letting on.

“It was always obvious that Ashley was willing to give something, but not other things,” Fennell says. “Which is a normal part of the negotiations for any interviews, but at the same time if it goes unacknowledged then it’s disingenuous. If I know that he knows more and I let it slide it’s a disservice to the audience. If he doesn’t want to answer it doesn’t mean I can’t ask.”

Fennell was barely one year old when the robbery occurred. He grew up in Sydney without knowledge of the story, so throughout he plays his preferred role as a storyteller: the outsider simply seeking context, information, and an explanation. “I listen better when I don’t feel like I belong,” is how he explains it, and that was one of several factors that contributed to Framed choosing not to go full true crime and advance its own theories as to who stole Weeping Woman.

“We have suspicions for sure, but there are two things: one, Australia’s defamation laws are not journo-friendly, but two, if I have doubts I don’t want to point the finger at anyone,” Fennell says. “We’re conservative, because we start by debunking the rumours. We don’t want to follow up with our own rumour that we can’t quite confirm. We have strong suspicions, but I don’t believe you should go to air with them if you can’t prove them.”

Framed is on SBS On Demand, from Sunday, December 26.

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