Page 91 of The Vet from Snowy River
‘It’s pressure, Josh. It’s pressure on our business.’
‘I wonder …’ he said slowly. ‘Hannah … do you think that could have been the plan all along? Is someone trying to make us walk away from our business?’
She whacked the support strut out of its lock and slammed her bonnet shut. ‘You mean, one of the other vets in the region? That’s a big claim, brother, and you don’t know them like I do. We help each other out, we don’t sabotage each other’s businesses.’
‘Sorry, Han. You’re right, you do know them, but if we’re not being harassed by a competitor, who is behind this? Here, read this.’ He handed her the copy of the objection letter he’d picked up from council.
‘What’s this?’
‘The objection. Signed by someone called Pamela Hogan.’
‘Bloody hell.’
He looked at his sister’s arrested face. ‘You know the name?’
‘I sure as hell do,’ she said. ‘Quick, to the back office.’
His sister ran across the flagged rear yard of the building and through the side door like the hounds of hell were after her. What on earth?
By the time he’d followed her into the office, she was on her knees in front of the filing cupboard, hauling out a jumble of manila folders.
‘You’re messing up my good work, Hannah,’ said Sandy.
‘Sorry. I’ll fix it. Okay, here it is.’
She slammed a green folder on top of the desk. ‘Pamela Hogan. You remember the offer we got to buy the building, way back, after we’d just officially become the owners?’
‘Um, sort of. I didn’t really take much notice, to be honest, Han. Walk me through the details.’
‘Okay, so the first offer came when you were on your final internship at the Dalgety Flats Stables. You hadn’t graduated. It was a letter in the mail, I think. I put it through the shredder with the rest of the junk mail and lined the cages with it.’
‘And there was another offer?’
‘Some guy from Lake Realtors over at Jindabyne. He’d received a generous offer, one we “couldn’t refuse”. He came during clinic hours. Sandy found him wandering through the first floor taking photos on his phone. I said we weren’t interested and told him he’d better have a sick pet with him next time I caught him wandering around my property.’
Josh nodded. ‘Nice.’
Hannah grinned. ‘I’m not a total coward.’
‘You’re the bravest person I know.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Where was I? Right, so then the emails started. I printed out a few and kept them.’
‘These emails, are they from Pamela Hogan?’
He opened the folder and rifled through the pages. Pamela Hogan, Solicitor from an office in Cooma whose unnamed client had apparently authorised her to send increasingly persistent offers to acquire the Cody and Cody building, month after month.
‘Nothing for the last few months, though,’ he said. ‘Nothing since I’ve been here.’
‘I had the computer guy block her email account.’
He had a thought. ‘You know how Barry O’Malley wouldn’t tell us who was behind all the trivial complaints we were getting because of some privacy law?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Maybe we get that cop, Meg, to ask. She may be able to convince him there’s a greater good here. And if it’s the same person, it’s starting to paint a pretty big picture, Han.’
‘Call her,’ she said.
