You Had It Coming by B.M. Carroll (snow like ashes series .txt) 📗

such a first-world problem. Phnom Penh had swarms of children, orphaned and barefoot, who pulled at her clothes and begged for money, food or, their ultimate dream, to be adopted.

Megan and Roslyn spoke again about a week later. ‘The owner is still not happy. He’s taking your father to the New South Wales Fair Trading Tribunal. He wants compensation.’

‘How much?’

‘Four hundred thousand.’

‘What?’ Megan laughed because it sounded so ludicrous, because she had faith in her father’s workmanship, and because it still seemed unimportant in comparison to what she’d seen that day at Stung Meanchey, the garbage dump outside Phnom Penh: children scavenging through garbage, looking for plastic, glass and metal to sell to the small local recycling businesses. They not only ‘worked’ at the dump, they lived there, their makeshift houses perched on mounds of rubbish, a few of them killed each year, rolled over by garbage trucks.

Roslyn sent an email following the tribunal hearing: Your father has been ordered to pay the compensation. The Tribunal Member said he failed to properly investigate the condition of the concrete slab, the moisture content, and traffic usage. The insurance company are resisting because they weren’t informed of the dispute soon enough. This is a disaster.

Megan started to pay attention: $400,000 was a life-changing sum of money. Had her dad been careless or distracted when undertaking the work? Why didn’t he inform the insurance company straight away? Was this ‘disaster’, indirectly, all her fault?

That doesn’t sound like Dad. What happens now?

Now it goes to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Does Dad need a lawyer?

Not at this stage. You’re meant to represent yourself. But it’s really taking its toll. He’s been very stressed and not himself at all. I’m worried about him.

Her dad lost the second hearing and went to see a lawyer about appealing. He was told it would be extremely costly, and there was no guarantee he would win. The dispute was not a clear-cut one and the owner had obtained expert opinions that would hold weight unless Peter could produce some experts of his own.

We’ve got no money to take this further, Roslyn emailed. We’re already out of pocket from the rectification work. Losing would mean we’re up for the other side’s legal costs, too. The insurance company isn’t budging.

Peter remortgaged the house to pay the $400,000. His reputation and financial stability were shattered. He sank into depression. The world was a bad place. People couldn’t be trusted. What was the point in working hard all your life? His mental health deteriorated until he was unable to summon the confidence to work. In Roslyn’s opinion, his depression led to the cancer. Probably not true, but it definitely affected his capacity to fight the disease, and made him resist getting proper treatment. Nothing was worthwhile. Everything was a conspiracy against him; even the doctors and nurses who were doing their very best.

Megan stayed in Cambodia for four weeks. She went on another ‘tour’ of the garbage dump and this time was struck by the children’s happy smiles. Living like this – the putrid smell, the mud and dirt, managing to exist from what other people threw away – they still smiled. There was a pretty girl in a long clean dress and Megan slipped her some money. The girl symbolised hope and inventiveness, despite dire circumstances.

Roslyn called on the day she was due to leave for Vietnam. The other girls in the dormitory growled on being woken up by the loud ring tone. Megan turned off the volume, and scuttled outside to the corridor.

‘It was the Maloufs,’ Roslyn cried. ‘The owner of the building is a relative of theirs. They set your father up.’

‘What?’ Megan asked groggily, leaning against the wall to prop herself up. She’d had a late night and felt queasy from an impromptu farewell party, which involved shots of vodka in the hostel’s common room.

‘The Maloufs were behind the whole thing,’ Roslyn screeched in her ear, doing her headache no favours.

‘How do you know?’ she asked in disbelief.

‘I did some investigation of my own because I needed your father to feel better about himself. I found out that the site was well-known for its water problems, which meant any kind of construction on that driveway would’ve had issues. And I found out that the owner is married to one of Thomas Malouf’s aunts.’

Megan’s stomach plummeted. This was no coincidence. It couldn’t be.

‘I confronted him, the owner.’ Roslyn sounded deranged. ‘I told him that I knew who he really was, and the terrible effect the dispute had on Peter. Do you know what he said to me, Megan? Do you know what he actually said?’

‘What?’ she whispered, closing her eyes with dread.

‘He said “Reputations are easy to fuck with, aren’t they?”’

Bile rose in her throat. ‘What did he mean?’

‘I asked him! Apparently, Thomas missed out on a cadetship with one of the banks. He was all set to start but the bank suddenly changed its mind. Another job offer was retracted after a background check. Thomas’s reputation was damaged, so they thought your father was fair game.’

The Maloufs wanted revenge. Winning the trial evidently wasn’t enough.

Megan’s thoughts leapt to the girl in the dump who had been wearing that impossibly clean dress. How did she do it? How did she stay clean when she had all that filth around her?

‘I’m sorry, Mum. This is all my fault.’

Then, before she could help it, her stomach heaved and she threw up all over the corridor.

52

JESS

The Maloufs tried to sabotage Jess’s father, too. They searched their extensive network until they unearthed someone whom Richard Foster had operated on; as one of the top surgeons in the city it wasn’t that hard. A lawsuit was manufactured, and an online smear campaign launched. But malpractice in heart surgery is harder to pull off than malpractice in the building industry. Richard knew his way around the pitfalls of professional indemnity insurance and immediately informed his broker. He’d been sued before, and had an experienced