The Inquiry was a hoot. It was held in the Cathedral, and I was allowed to take a friend. Radhika Coomaraswamy kindly accompanied me on the first day, but she was a busy person, and subsequently I took Glencora, who sat there throughout the proceedings for the next few weeks, and reacted splendidly whenever occasion offered.
The Board had ignored the advice of the lawyers that they should ask me to nominate someone. There was also a recommendation that the third person should be someone absolutely neutral, but this was ignored, and instead they chose three people, two of whom where former Members of the Board which had selected Illangakoon to be Warden. Clearly they could not accept that he was a scoundrel, so I realized the dice were stacked against me from the start.
The third member was Vincent Thamotheram. He had been with my father in the Attorney General’s Department and Mahinda Ellepola, whom I had consulted, told me that he would in essence get his revenge for the various digs my father had had at his expense. He was also connected to Duleep Kumar. I therefore thought I might as well enjoy myself, and in the course of the Inquiry I accused him of being prejudiced: the next day I apologized profusely and said I had not realized before that he was related to the Treasurer. This caused him apoplexy, and he claimed it was an even greater insult, which was of course true.
