by Brian Cain
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Jason’s Rolls Royce lumbered to a halt in front of the campaign office. As he stepped out of the car, diary underarm, he was confronted by an elderly gentleman.
“Buckets of money and wanting to run the place as well now, won’t wash here, we’re on to you boy. Your haircut’s no cover either.” The grey haired, thin, wrinkled man stumbled down the kerb. Jason dropped his diary to use both his arms to support him. He yelled to Beagle in the office.
“Beagle! Quickly, we need a hand.” Beagle appeared out the door and used what he could of his puny framework to help them into the office. They sat him in a chair in Jason’s office, which had a glass front with a view to the footpath and roadway. “May we offer you a cup of tea, or coffee perhaps?”
The old man had calmed. “That’s most kind of you son, a cup of tea would be nice. Black with no sugar thanks. I’m amazed you have time for me.” Beagle immediately started making tea for the old man in the foyer kitchenette adjoining the foyer office.
Jason sat next to the old man, on the same side of the desk. “What name should I call you sir?”
“Wilton Densely, I’m eighty-seven years old.”
“And a fine figure of a man for eighty-seven.”
“It’s strange boy, I feel the best I have ever felt for many years, as soon as you touched me.”
“Perhaps the jolt down the kerb put your back in place or something like that.”
Wilton took off his glasses and looked at Jason’s eyes through his layers of wrinkles. “I don’t think so boy.”
Beagle came in the open door with a cup of tea; he placed it next to the old man, then quietly went back to his foyer desk. Jason talked to the old man for half an hour. Wilton had lived in the Adelaide hills all his life. He remembered driving bullock trains to and from Adelaide along what was now the Old Mount Barker road. He spoke of the first motor car he ever saw and his excitement at the thought of owning one. He ran a transport service with a Model T Ford to Stirling and the surrounding hills towns changing vehicles as time progressed. He saw military service in the Second World War in New Guinea. He had outlived his entire family and was a resident of a nearby elderly person’s hostel. Jason felt humble in his presence.
“And that’s about it boy. You’re Bob Brinkly’s son aren’t you?”
“Yes I am.”
Wilton rose to his feet. “Well I’d better be toddling along, you’re a busy man. I must apologise about my outburst earlier, you’re not quite what I expected. I hope you’re not playing any of that damn noisy music any more.”
“No. I’m far too busy with other things now, maybe one day.”
He turned towards Jason as he approached the door to the street. “There are some people round here who will be very worried by your arrival and if they’re not, then they should be, you’ll find them.”
“Please, come visit again Wilton.”
“Yes, I’ll bring my girlfriend with me next time, she’s a lot younger than me, she’s only sixty-eight. Catch you soon.” He disappeared out the door.
Jason turned to Beagle. “Life starts at eighty-seven Beagle.”
The main door opened again, Jason looked back to find Anita Powel in front of him with his diary in her outreached hand. “I think you might need this. You look stunning with your hair cut. I waited for you with a photographer and a journalist from the local newspaper for a story on your starting your campaign. When you pulled up the old man beat us to it. We got plenty of pictures of you helping him; the local journo is getting a story from the old man now. What happened?”
“Wilton, the gentleman you spoke of, will be able to tell you that, he’s quite a character. I haven’t seen you for a few days, was it something I said?”
“I’ve been very busy, where do you think all your national and overseas press releases come from?”
“Oh, I see.”
“Do you have any firm policies as yet, for the area locally and nationally?”
“I think it’s a bit early for national views. I’ll be getting out and about in the next few days, to see what the local people want, as compared to what they’ve been getting. The people round here are my main concern now, that’s why I took the challenge, to help the people.”
“If you won the seat, would you really have the time to spend here, considering your total commitments?”
“If I won the seat I’d be compelled to stand down from Brinkly International. I have already made up my mind that is what I wanted to do. A win would see my time devoted to the people.”
“This looks like page two or three to me, I have to be running along.”
She turned quickly so her hair brushed Jason’s face. Jason followed her outside. “Can we have dinner tonight?”
“This isn’t the only story I’m doing Jason, I’m doing the follow up stories on your manufacturing plants, Banks and Harrogan, Ramrod, Brinkwick Mining, shall I go on.”
“Can’t you give some of it to someone else?”
An excited young journalist from a local paper joined her, they both climbed in her car. “No way, I waited a long time for a break like this.”
“I’ll be chasing all over town for you.”
Anita started her car. “Yes and I’ll be loving it.” The car reversed onto the street and disappeared.
Jason walked back into the office. “What do you suggest we do Beagle?”
“Well you’ve already been doing it, talking to people and the press.”
“What’s with all the papers here?”
“I’m running through the funding and expenditure of local government and council. I can’t say that I’ve found anything wrong as yet.”
“That’s good, I would hate to find anything underhanded up here; I really love the place.” Jason picked up a file from the top of the pile on Beagle’s desk. He read the heading. “Bitumen road resurfacing expenditure. Parkin Shire. Sounds exciting.” He glanced at the list of roadways resurfaced with the corresponding cost opposite. He saw several streets he was familiar with but he saw several he couldn’t place in Stirling. “There must have been some recent sub division development here Beagle. I rode my push bike around here when I was a kid; some of these names are new to me.”
Beagle looked up. “There has been little new development around here for some years; difficult to develop here with the new hills face zone laws. You must have forgotten them, they are resurfacing jobs, so the roads would be a few years old at least.”
“I’ll get a new street directory and check, but I’m sure I’m right.”
Beagle opened a drawer in his desk and pulled one out. “I got it a couple of days ago to check seat boundaries for canvassing purposes.”
Jason looked in the index. “Thought so, I’ve found four already that are misprints. They don’t exist here.” He found ten in all.
Beagle studied the document, then picked up the phone. He punched in a number from its contents. “Hello, is that Bitumen Resurfacing Services?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have accounts please?”
“Hold the line please.”
Music played on the line for a few seconds. “Accounts, can I help you?”
Beagle looked at the council clerk’s name on the document. “Mr Ellis of Stirling Council, I’m just checking on job docket numbers from some resurfacing work in our area on the, second of January to the sixth of January, ninety-five.” Beagle gave the female voice ten street names, there was silence on the line, all Beagle could hear was the computer keyboard.
“I’m sorry Mr Ellis, I can’t find those streets on our dockets at all, in fact there’s nothing for them in your shire whatsoever.”
“Could you tell me the supervisor who covered that work?” The female voice gave him a name and a mobile phone number; he rang it. He confirmed the supervisor’s identity then asked him about the work in question. The gentleman pulled his vehicle up and checked his diary. Seven streets had been resurfaced in the four days. The document Beagle he
ld listed seventeen. The quantities and costs matched for the roads that had been done. Exactly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the other ten roads was unaccounted for. He asked the supervisor to send him copies of the information with a brief explanation of the conversation with Beagle, the man agreed. They had a stroke of luck, the man lived in the shire, Beagle arranged to pick up the information himself.
“It looks like this money has disappeared Jason.”
“Could it be a mistake?”
“No, it’s in the council’s capital expenditure report, the money has gone out of the council funds, but it didn’t go where it’s claimed. We just proved that. Amazing, if you never knew your way around here, we never would have noticed.”
“Why hasn’t someone else picked it up?”
“When people work together for a long time, they get complacent. Smart people can use that for their advantage. Nobody checks anything because they’re all friends. These documents are available to anybody who wants to view them; the public just wouldn’t pick this up. Our experience has led us to ask this question, even you thought it was a misprint, but together we found a hole. Most people round here would be like you, not want to know if this was happening on their doorstep. The question now is, who is doing this?”
“I’d think that was simple, if the funds weren’t paid to the resurfacing company, who were they paid to?”
“That’s it, finding that out will be difficult. Information like that is hard to come by, unless you’re inside.”
“It’s past five Beagle, time we went home. I’ll start visiting around the electorate tomorrow. I think someone will show up who can check this out for us.”
‘I’ll see this gentleman from the resurfacing company on the way home and pick up the information.”
They talked to some passersby on the pavement outside the office for a while, then retired for the day