At Miles’ insistence Allen reluctantly dipped a finger into some of the remaining water in the pool to see for himself how hot it was. It did no good. Miles and Jake soon retreated to a pub in another suburb in the hope that the girls would cool him off.
“What do the philosophers say about bushfires?” asked Miles.
“Mate, even Socrates would have wet himself getting away. I wasn’t gonna argue about the meaning of existence with that fire. I took action against it.”
After that Miles did not see anyone for almost two weeks. Jake and Tomasina went to Tomasina’s parents who had retired to a spot further up the coast, and stayed for Christmas. Emma along with the others he knew from the Bugle Group and the Football Club also mostly vanished on holiday somewhere. His landlord was, as usual, overseas implementing an enormous computer system. Miles thought he was in europe. That meant he was by himself for Christmas. He had always known he would have a lonely Christmas but he had not bargained on not even speaking to anyone over the holidays. His mother had given up trying to get him home too late to send his presents in time, so all Miles got on the day itself was just two cards - from Emma and her fiancé, and Jake and Tomasina. He had planned to spend time and some of his meager savings in touring the northern beaches, but just after he fought the bushfire the weather turned and it rained. Well, he would do the beaches after Christmas, he told himself.
He bought some more Woodehouse books and a book on a particularly gory bit of English history - reading about other people’s long gone troubles diverted him. He also bought, second hand, a slim volume entitled ‘Teach Yourself Philosophy’ intending to ambush Jake. He watched films, exercised some and toyed with the idea of taking up skin diving, but put the idea to one side after checking equipment prices. Miles did not have the heart to check out night clubs and, in any case, did not fancy looking for girls by himself. Hunting in pairs was much easier. Anyway, everyone was away for the holidays.
He almost rang Anne. He had some excuse as he could ask what had happened after the fire, and whether Allen was still going to sue everyone as he had been threatening when they left. In the end he did not but he still thought – brooded – about her a great deal. She was with Allen, he decided, because he had money and prospects, and he had nothing. He was just a reporter on the Koala Bay Bugle – an honorable spot in the profession of journalism but, as he was constantly reminded, not a high one. The less he talked to others the darker Miles’ thoughts became, and the less he went out. By New Year Miles was unable to rouse himself to con an invitation to a party, and spent the night alone, watching the countdown on television.
After that miserable Christmas, Miles was even glad to get back to the dysfunctional Bugle group. In fact, as Justin had originally promised, almost a year previously, there were certain advantages to being based in that remote outpost of the Bugle group. When he returned to his desk, brushing aside questions about how he had spent his holidays, the summer weather had come back in a succession of balmy days. With plenty of people still on holidays, that meant Koala Bay Beach was crowded. Miles often brought in his bathers and towel and went for a swim after work, as this seemed more acceptable than swimming by himself would have been in his brief summer holiday. Very brief bikinis were in that season, Miles noted with satisfaction, and occasionally someone went topless. This was all heady stuff for a lad from the bush. He tentatively suggested to Emma that a few beach shots might go well in the paper.
“I know what you want in the paper, Miley,” she snorted. “You want the ex-schoolies topless.”
“Can I help it if they’re there? A nice family beach like that and girls flaunt themselves. I’m shocked, that’s what I am.”
“So that’s why you brought in your bathers?”
“Guy has to keep healthy somehow. Have to keep exercising.”
“The exercise you get is perving.”
“But this is summer, and this is a beachside suburb. What is more natural than to have a beach scene with healthy bodies in there – girls and guys.”
“Lots of guys.”
“Okay, lots of guys, but some girls right? We live in a society with two genders remember? We have to observe equality of the sexes!”
“You’ve been hanging out with Jake too much.”
Emma later produced some very good beach scenes showing groups of friends on the beach and a classy mix of the sexes, which Miles praised hoping for some more. He had known perfectly well that anything of girls alone, let alone anything saucy, was most unlikely to get past the subs desk at South Forest. The Bugle Group papers were for families, but the subs desk was also a hotbed of feminism. Very occasionally when the English language forced Miles to pick a pronoun denoting gender he chose ‘he’. This was always changed to ‘she’ by one of the subs. Miles compromised in this silent conflict by switching to the plural form, but he good reason to believe that shots of single girls in bikinis would be right out.
Along with the turn in the weather came a turn in the news with the Labor MP representing the northern half of Koala Bay, as well as a large area north and west of it, abruptly resigning from Parliament, citing family reasons. That meant a by-election and a minor faction fight over the preselection for the seat Labor expected to hold, which Miles was able to report. This was at least more interesting than writing about community groups and in this he competed directly with the metro dailies, which printed the occasional, small article about the preselection battle. He acquitted himself well. The eventual result was that the center and right aligned to choose a right-wing candidate, as more acceptable to that electorate, against some opposition from the left.
With all of this, and as his friends came back, Miles regained his good humor. Then a letter arrived from a lawyer representing Allen, referring to the events in Anne’s backyard.
In part it read:
“My client suffered considerable emotional and psychological distress, as a result of these incidents and in the altercation with both yourself and Jake Richard Dunleigh, and has since been certified as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This condition may severely damage his substantial career prospects. After computing his likely loss of income, and recompense for the pain and suffering to which your actions contributed, my client demands the sum of $487,000 as due compensation for his losses.’
Miles was dumbfounded for several moments when he read the amount, then he laughed out loud, startling Kelly out in reception. If Allen had asked for $5,000 he might have been mildly concerned. Thanks to cheap living, a fortunate rent and his solitary Christmas he had a few hundred dollars set aside, but Allen was demanding nearly half a million dollars. Was the man mad? Come to think of it, the letter said that he was mad, in a way.
He rang Mr. Evans, the lawyer who was head of the local branch of the Liberal Party. Evans never wanted to say anything on the record, but he was sufficiently amused by Miles to at least keep him up to date with the few rumours that came through the grape vine about Werribee and Wilson. As it happened Evans did have some news, in that he had heard that the firm in question had got most of the money back but not all and, most interesting of all to Miles, the Law Society had produced a report about the incident. After kicking that piece of gossip around a little, Miles told the lawyer about his own legal adventure.
“He’s hopeful,” said Evans, when Miles told him the amount. “Everyone suffers from psychological trauma these days.”
“So is there any hint you can give me about how to deal with this. I’ve got a few dollars but it’s an air fare. It won’t amount to much in legal fees.”
“Well, have you got any assets?”
“Beat up car and a second-hand computer.”
Evans was amused. “Ah to be young and not tied to assets or mortgages. This is not legal advice, right, but you don’t need to do anything. Just put it in an envelope and send it back to the lawyers.”
“Just send it back?”
“Sure. Once they work out you don’t have any money worth a legal action, they’ll lose interest very quickly. Trust me. The lawyers should have known you weren’t worth pursuing. I don’t know if there’s a public liability action in it, but they should be going after whoever owns the house, and the liability insurance.”
“Oh!” said Miles thinking of Anne.
But he still did not ring her. He later spoke to Jake, who had also received a writ. He had consulted a lawyer who wanted several hundred dollars just to negotiate a settlement which would involve a payout of several thousand more. As he was in the same ‘poor but honest’ wealth category as Miles, he liked Evans’s legal advice much better.
“Mind you,” he said, “it’s almost worth the money to belt that fuckwit.”
As it happened shortly afterwards Miles managed to get a little of his own back at lawyers in a story concerning his old friends at Werribee and Wilson. From the moment Evans mentioned that the Law Society had produced a report about the firm, he had wondered how to get his hands on a copy. The Law Society was of little help. It counted the report as confidential and was not about to let an inconsequential reporter from an obscure newspaper group see it before it went to the society’s disciplinary group. In fact, it did not intend to release the report at all. Any action taken against the lawyers would be mentioned in the annual report. Now would Miles go away? Important people might want to use the phones.
Undeterred, the reporter wondered who else would have a copy. Ah yes, the police! He rang Frank, the younger of the two policemen who had raided his office, with whom he had become friendly. They had discussed the merits of AFL versus Rugby League, with Frank proving to be a die-hard South Sydney supporter. It took all kinds. As it happened Frank’s superior did have a copy of the Law Society report. The partners may have broken laws at some point but as all but about $50,000 had been recovered which the partners had agreed to pay out of their own pockets, any disciplinary action was a matter for the Law Society. However, a little publicity would not hurt in efforts to find Steven Gerald Coombes. Besides his misdeeds in Koala Bay, the man had been involved in other matters of interest to police. With the tacit consent of his superior, Frank emailed him the report.
Obtaining the report marked Miles for a shining career in journalism. In America police investigators have been known to hand over investigation files to reporters, on the record. In Australia, getting police to talk out of turn requires effort.
Miles then managed to wring a formal admission from the Law Council that the report existed but with the warning that, “the report is confidential and cannot be quoted in any story. Any copy you have must be destroyed at once”.
“Okay, thanks,” said Miles who hung up and started writing a story quoting from the report – although this time he was careful to quote only from the report and keep the language to that of a police report. The result made for dry reading beyond the first three paragraphs but there would be less reason for lawyers to wring their hands over it.
He rang Mr. Wilson, whose comments were unhelpful.
“SCUMBAG! PARASITE! SHITHEAD! WE TOLD YOU BEFORE, YOU’LL GET YOURSELF FIRED! PRINT A WORD! PRINT A SINGLE WORD AND YOU’LL WISH WAS NEVER BORN. FUCKING LOCAL RAG!”
“Okay,” said Miles, thinking of Allen and smiling, “your threats have been noted. So what about the report?”
Mr. Wilson hung up.
The story landed him back in Justin’s office with Justin, Eve and yet more lawyers, namely Mr. Bosworth and Ms. Moore - who were not happy at having to reprise the dubious activities of Werribee and Wilson. But having a report, illgotten or not, changed many things. It meant that a supposedly responsible body – that is, the State Law Council - was saying that the partners of Werribee and Wilson had been messing with their trust fund, and not a down-at-heel, knuckles-dragging-on-the-ground reporter from somewhere out in the wilds of suburban Sydney. Mr. Bosworth, however, was still sufficiently untrained in the ways of journalists to suggest that The Bugle Group write to the Law Society and ask them to officially release the report. Justin laughed at him.
“Jim, you’ve spent too much time behind a desk, mate. We don’t write to people suggesting courses of action, we fucking ring ‘em up and tell them we’re running this shit tomorrow and if they want to get their side of story in, they they’d better make some comment.”
“It’s a confidential report,” protested Moore, weakly.
“Yeah, great isn’t it,” said Justin happily. “Eve, it’s got the fact that it’s a ‘confidential report’ high up in the story, hasn’t it?”
“Yep, second par,” said Eve.
“There ya go; it’s in there. No need to worry.”
Stunned, Moore looked at Bosworth.
“I think that my colleague is concerned about the ramifications of printing a confidential report,” explained Bosworth, smiling diplomatically. “She is concerned over the possibility of resulting legal action from the Society.”
“Of course I know what she’s fucking concerned about,” snapped Justin. “I’ve been raped by lawyers before and I’ve got the scars on the arse to prove it. The bottom line is this; if we sit on a report only because its confidential then we’d be the first newspaper group in Australia to do it. Didn’t they teach you anything in communications law, Jim?”
“They taught me to respect the law,” Bosworth said weakly.
“Then what the fuck are you advising me for? So if you wanna take that report and hand it back to the Law Society, go right ahead. Miles, is it okay if our law-abiding mate here hands the report back to the Law Society?”
“That copy? No worries.” Miles had, in fact, made four copies, in addition to digital copies of the text. He had done his best to lose the original email. “But they’ve already got copies – it’s their report.”
Justin laughed and, for a moment, Miles did not think of him as the enemy.
“See, Miles already knows the rules. You go away like good lawyers and tell the courts they can’t have an injunction, or suppression order, or whatever else Wilson ‘n fucking Werribee want.
Bosworth and colleague left, muttering to each other, without the report, then Eve left with Miles right behind her. Having got what he wanted he had no wish to linger in Justin’s office.
“Miles!” said Justin.
Curse! He had almost got away.
“Yes boss.”
“Did you ever find Angela?”
Was that all the man was interested in.
“Police think they’ve gone overseas, but that’s only a guess.”
“With this Steve guy?”
“Uh huh.”
The editor in chief grunted.
Getting the story in the paper was one thing, but as Miles discovered to his surprise, the aftermath was quite another. For when the story hit the streets, the excrement hit the fan as it is bound to do for those sort of stories. Werribee and Wilson’s first action was to send a letter to the Bugle Group claiming damages of $4 million – an amount so large, and so far in front of any defamation settlement yet handed out in Australia, not to mention the Federal cap on such awards, that even Jim Bosworth laughed and put his books on communication law aside. In a rare show of humanity, Ms. Moore rang Miles (on billable time) to tell him that they would handle to matter so there was no need for him to worry about it. In practical terms, as the article had been seen by the lawyers and discussed in a meeting before publication he was tolerably safe from management backlash - or, at least, he would be at most newspaper groups. In any case, as Miles had recently survived a personal legal claim for half a million dollars (he never heard about Allen’s letter again), a demand for a mere four million dollars that someone else might have to pay could be laughed off.
However, for everyone else in the offices of the Koala Bay Bugle – the entire group soon heard about the gigantic claim - the legal letter was no laughing matter. It was assumed that because a firm of lawyers had sent in a letter claiming that they were owed such an enormous amount in damages, that Miles must have done something wrong. To make matters worse, a letter demanding compensation was easily confused with a writ starting a formal legal action. The last person to consider the issue in a mature, balanced way was Ros.
“YOU!” She screamed at Miles the moment he showed his face at the office door on Wednesday, after lunch. “YOU IDIOT BOY! WE HAVE A HUGE WRIT THANKS TO YOU. YOU’RE SACKED! DO YOU HEAR ME? SACKED!”
Miles ignored her, smiled at Kelly – who looked up at him with round-eyed, seriousness, but was distracted by the sight of Kate, who also came out of her den expressly to stare, open-mouthed and wordlessly at him. He found this unnerving. He cared nothing for Ros’ good opinion, but he did care what Kelly and Kate thought and, as far as they were concerned, Miles was likely to be dragged off to court any moment.
“Are they going to sack you?” asked Kelly, so softly that Miles could barely hear her above Ros shouting.
“JUST WAIT UNTIL MY BROTHER HEARS ABOUT THIS? YOU’RE GUNNA BE MATCHED STRAIGHT OUT. YOU’LL NEVER GET A JOB IN NEWSPAPERS AGAIN.”
“Will they have to close the paper?” asked Kate. Both ladies ignored Ros.
“Close the pap.. no, of course not,” Miles said. “Lawyers make lots of claims that never get paid.”
“HAVEN’T YOU HEARD ME? YOU’RE SACKED! GET YOUR STUFF AND GO! DON’T EVEN GO NEAR YOUR KEYBOARD. THE DISGRACE. WE’LL HAVE TO NEGOTIATE.”
“I’m even in the clear…”
“YOU ARE NOT IN THE CLEAR, YOU STUPID BOY!”
“Because we had a meeting about it – the story was cleared by the lawyers. They even laughed about the letter.”
“So this is.. okay?” said Kate, puzzled by this careless approach to a legal action (both she and Kate were among those who thought the paper was already being sued, rather than just threatened).
“THIS IS NOT OKAY! YOU’RE SACKED!”
“Its fine. I’ll explain more when its quieter.
He walked off to leave Ros shouting for what seemed to be an age until Kate, raising her own voice for once, asked whether she had got someone in to look at the email. Ros muttered something about budget and stomped back to her own office.
Miles settled down for another week, although without any exciting story to put on his front page. He was tempted to follow up the Werribee and Wilson saga but he suspected that this might stretch the nerves of the lawyers a little too far. However, when he went out for an interview Kelly looked at him again with a peculiar intensity, as if she expected him to be sacked at any moment. Kate also stared open-mouthed at him. The insurance broker in the adjacent suite of offices, who happened to be standing in his own reception area as Miles was passing, also stared very hard. He must have heard Ros shouting – it would have been difficult not to – and guessed that Miles had caused some trouble. Miles hesitated, considering whether he should ask the broker why he as staring, but then moved on. This was proving more difficult than he thought. Perhaps it would get better once the other newspapers ran the story. Or would they? Miles had the report, they did not. Hmm!
The next day Miles found the card that had been given to him by a Herald journalist he had met at a press conference, when the Premier had made an announcement in the area. She had handed him her card unasked. He quickly found out she lived with her boyfriend in Bondi, but he had kept the card as a souvenir.
“Hey, Nicole, its Miles Black from the Koala Bay Bugle, we met at a press conference a few weeks back.”
“Miles, how could I forget. My man from Snowy River! What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted a copy of a report about lawyers mislaying a few million dollars…”
Nicole had to scratch around for a fresh way into the story, as the Bugle had already run the story about Werribee and Wilson. She found some recent stories about the dubious antics of other lawyers, and interviewed the Law Society President over the issue of trust funds in which he commented that the society may consider tightening the rules governing their use. Ha! Story! That legal worthy also made the mistake of telling Nicole the report was still confidential and so it could not be used in a newspaper article. When that demand was relayed back through the editorial chain of command, the story was given greater prominence along with the phrase “confidential report”.
When the story came out Miles made copies, highlighted the sections concerning his friends at Werribee and Wilson, and shoved the bits of paper under the noses of Kelly and Kate, to make sure they saw it. He also left a copy of the article on the reception desk of the insurance broker when it was unattended. Everyone stopped staring. Then one of the current affairs programs ran an item on lawyer trust funds being at risk, which showed part of the front page of the Koala Bay Bugle and Miles became a minor hero. A few days after the current affairs program, Miles went past the Werribee and Wilson building and saw that the sign advertising the firm had been removed. He never heard about the firm again.