7

THE PROBLEM WITH me sniffing around an old scandal like the Mondrian Affair was that some journo might get wind of it. The last thing we needed was for the media to rehash the whole business by linking it to our investigation. The government wouldn’t take that lying down, especially with the election so close. At the very least, they’d wheel out a senior minister to savage us. They might even get Lansdowne to do the job. And if they did that, he’d probably target me personally after our little chat on the phone.

Back from Fyshwick, I had a quick read of the Security Commission inquiry into Mondrian, and then rang an old mate who I thought might have more information on it. Tim O’Brien and I had done three years at Woden station together. He’d gone on to the commission and was now running its compliance effort. Tim’s work phone went to messages, so I tried his home number and that’s where I found him, sick as a dog with the latest flu. I told him I was interested in Mondrian, but emphasised that it was all strictly hush-hush. He said he understood, and told me that he had a staff member who’d been an investigator on the Mondrian inquiry. He assured me that this Colin Wells could keep his trap shut, and gave me Wells’ mobile number.

I immediately phoned Wells, mentioned Tim, and asked if we could talk face-to-face as soon as possible. Wells said he was happy to help, and we agreed to meet at Café del Sol in Garema Place. He said he’d be wearing a long, black coat and that he had a scraggy beard. The beard was why some of his mates called him Fidel, he said.

‘Fidel’ Wells was easy to spot when he entered the café. His beard was thin on his cheeks and thick under his chin. To my eye, the thing made him look more like an old-time Quaker than a Latin revolutionary. I signalled him over, and we ordered coffees and talked AFL till our drinks arrived. Then we got down to business.

‘I’ve skimmed your report on Mondrian,’ I said, ‘so I’ve got a fair idea of what you found. My question is, did you ever feel there was more to it? You know — things you could’ve got to if you’d been able to use thumbscrews?’

‘Not really,’ said Wells, smiling and shaking his head. ‘I mean, it’s possible that Mick Stanton got wind of the voucher scheme while he was working for Wright, but he said he didn’t, and we had no way of contradicting him. And as for Lansdowne, Stanton was adamant that he never talked shop with his uncle — not while he was working for Wright, nor later when he went to Mondrian. And Lansdowne backed him all the way on that.’

‘And Susan Wright? How’d you see her role in the whole affair?’

‘Innocent enough, I guess, if a bit naive. She supported Stanton’s claim that he had nothing to do with putting the voucher scheme together. And she said she didn’t know anything about his role at Mondrian, either. We had no evidence to the contrary. And, you know, these ex-political types parlay their contacts and knowledge into big bucks all the time. On the face of it, Stanton’s only sin was tipping his bank into a scandal.’

‘So everyone came out of the Mondrian affair virtually unscathed,’ I said, looking up from my notebook.

‘Not exactly everyone,’ said Wells. ‘Susan Wright’s senior person at the time took some big hits.’

‘That was Dennis Hanley?’

‘Correct. The voucher scheme was Hanley’s baby, and in the end it buried him. He was a big-picture person, but very poor on detail. Like, he left it to a junior person to examine the corporate beneficiaries of the scheme, and that effectively put the job on hold. The thing was, this mob’d only been in office for about a year at that stage, so the whole ministerial wing was more or less in chaos — everyone leaving it to someone else to do the necessaries. Well, in this case, the buck stopped with Hanley.’

‘So what happened to him?’

‘He lost his job. And it turned into a double whammy for him, because the story goes that he and Wright had been having it off, and she put an end to their affair once the scandal broke. She’d trusted him to look after her interests, and he demonstrated a shaky grasp of process. So he paid the price.’

‘And where’s Hanley now?’

‘Oh, I thought you’d know,’ said Wells, swirling the last of his coffee around in his cup. ‘He died a few months after we reported — so, about eleven years ago now.’

‘How’d it happen?’

‘He had a head-on with a stock transporter out on the Sutton Road. He was pissed at the time, but I understand not so pissed that he didn’t know which side of the road he should’ve been on.’

‘And Stanton’s dead, too, isn’t he?’

‘Ahh, so you do read the obituaries. Yeah, dead as well. He joined Mondrian as a lean and nosey go-getter, but after five years there, he was so fat and flatulent that his ticker just went pop.’