Mat locked the car whilst the kids ran on ahead. He could hear Dad coughing even this far from the house, and, as always, sent a mental thought of sympathy to the neighbours that had to listen to it constantly.

Susan was talking to Mum by the time Mat came inside. The kettle was on and the kids had taken over the TV next door.

"Go talk to your Dad," Mum said, "he needs cheering up."

Mat found Dad sitting in his favourite arm chair in the conservatory.

"I'm not very well today," Dad said in greeting. "The cough's very bad today."

"I know," Mat said, as he always did. He'd been listening to Dad's cough and Dad's assessment of it since he had been a small kid. His older brother was more tolerant but Mat preferred not to hear about it.

Today was a day when Dad was determined to tell Mat every detail. "The phleghm is sticky and hard to cough up today. It must be the wind blowing pollen around."

"Lucy won a prize at school for her neat handwriting yesterday," Mat said, desperate to change the subject.

"Good, good," Dad said, nodding his grey head.

Susan and Mum came in, tea tray and cups distributed around the room. "Has Dad told you what happened?" Susan asked.

"That woman! How dare she!" Mum said dramatically.

"What woman? What's going on?" Mat asked.

"Oh, the young woman at ACC on Thursday," Dad mumbled, looking embarrassed.

Accident Compensation, or ACC, was a government scheme that was meant to compensate injuries sustained by accident, including the work place. Industrial disease, which older workers like Mat's Dad had, was usually dismissed as a health issue, as there were too many cases to pay out on. There was a small weekly payout, hard won by anyone able to get it.

"She said Dad couldn't get any more compo for all that asbestos in his lungs!" Susan said indignantly.

"Why?" Mat felt the usual anger well up in his throat.

"She said I didn't have enough asbestos in there to qualify," Dad said gloomily. Then they had to wait whilst Dad had one of his coughing fits.

"So...so," he spluttered between coughs. He held his hands up in a commanding gesture, so no-one would speak until he had his say. And everyone obeyed.

He finally stopped coughing, spat into a pottle by his chair, took several deep breaths and composed himself.

"So, I said to her, "Do you want me to go breathe some more in, so I can get the pittance that you pay me?" I was so..." (cough) " angry with her, but I just walked out, I was too upset to stay there."

"That's shocking!" Susan said. "You should complain."

"No, I'm done," Dad said. "We've tried, the doctors have tried. It's too stressful and I'm tired of it. I want no more to do with it."

"You want me to have a go?" Susan said.

"He'll just get upset, dear, and it makes his cough worse," Mum said. "We don't need to dwell on it, it is unfair but let's push it aside."

The conversation drifted to other subjects and the matter was closed. For now.

But a month later there was an article about how Accident Compensation staff were themselves receiving compo for their trivial injuries. Mat's blood boiled. But he was playing Happy Families now. He'd promised Dad he'd stay out of trouble, live below the radar, not upset Susan and the kids.

Mat happened to receive an injury himself, a back injury that stopped him working on the building site. He had reason to go into the ACC office. He sat in the reception room, watching the workers in their nice, clean office going about their nice, safe errands. Who was it that had spoken to Dad that day? Any woman under 50 was a young woman by Dad's account.

Dad took a turn for the worst. The coughing intensified, and he was admitted to hospital with pneumonia.

There, Dad seemed to give up hope. The oxygen pumped into him burned his lips, the medication they gave him to fight the infection seemed to prevent him coughing up the phlegm that was slowly drowning him. The dreaded call came at mid morning. Dad had taken a turn for the worst. Mat arrived too late. Traffic was heavy on the Southern Motorway. Mum and his older brother were crying and Dad was already gone.

The funeral was a gloomy affair. A lot of his old building mates came to pay their last respects, neighbours, friends and family from all over Auckland. It was good connecting with people Mat had not seen in an age, but he cringed as all through the service he could hear some coughing from the old geezers. It reminded him of Dad, in the worst possible way.

Mum had the ashes from the funeral. There was a box on the highest shelf of the book case.

"What am I meant to do with it?" she wailed when Mat came to visit.

"I dunno, didn't he say to scatter him in the garden?"

"I can't...I just can't!" Mum sobbed.

"Why don't we get Paul over here, and his family, and we have a little ceremony, and scatter the ashes under the roses at the front?" Susan said gently.

"Yes, yes," Mum said, grateful for guidance. "Can we do it today?"

Paul came with his wife Ann, and the two girls, and they all held hands in a ring around the circular flower bed on the front lawn. 

"The neighbours must be wondering, WTF," the oldest girl whispered to her cousin, and he grinned.

"Stop being disrespectful," Mum hissed, and the kids shuffled their feet and behaved.

They said the Lord's prayer, then Paul opened the box, and the adults took turns taking a handful and scattering the grey ashes.

Mat was last, and as he took the box he noticed some white fibres at the bottom amongst the grey.

"I wonder?" he thought.

He tipped the box gently, careful to keep the white fibres in the box, careful to conceal the inside of the box from everyone else. He folded the box carefully and put it inside a plastic bag they had brought out for the purpose. "Done," he said, let's go in for a cup of tea.

The woman's name was Naiome. That was the woman that had upset his father.

He found the old forms, and there was her name.

She happened to be the woman that dealt with his case too. "A nice man, your Dad," she had said. "How is he getting on?"

"Coughs a lot," Mat said.

"Oh, that must be difficult. A lot of old builders get a cough but usually it's nothing serious."

"Asbestos is not serious?"

"Your Dad hasn't much asbestos," she told him firmly. "He probably smoked like a chimney when he was young."

"He never smoked."

"A lot of people don't admit it. Now, about your case..."

That was the sort of uncaring person she was, he fumed.

Mat had a record. She probably didn't know that. Mat had done a lot more than he would admit. Mat hadn't even been caught for most of it.

His cell mate had lost a finger trying to escape prison. He'd been given thousands by ACC. But the Old Man never broke the law in his life, worked hard all his life, got sick at work... Mat reckoned he might as well break a few rules. Being a good citizen got you nowhere.

Mat waited till Susan and the kids were away. He took the box carefully out of the bag, and put it on the black plastic table cloth he had purchased from a two dollar type shop yesterday.

He carefully tipped the remaining ashes onto the plastic. "Sorry, Dad, but this will avenge you a little," he said gently.

He had a mask on, and another he laid on the table.

The interesting thing about asbestos, the reason it was used so much, it resists being burned. It should have broken up in the crematorium. It didn't, and Mat took this as a sign that Dad, or God, or maybe even the Devil, wanted him to carry out this piece of wickedness.

He couldn't get to the politicians. He couldn't get to the companies that profited from selling this evil stuff. He couldn't get to the big players that really needed punishing.

But Naiome, she was going down.

He separated the fibres from the ash, making quite a substantial pile.

He tipped the fibres into the mask.

He had already modified the mask to suit his purpose.

He put the letter of apology under Susan's pillow. Then he started on his journey.

The office was warm and comfortable. There was a young man ushering an elderly woman through to a private office. A man with a ski boot and crutches sat in the waiting area. Two women behind the reception desk, tapping on keyboards.

The receptionist greeted him brightly from the desk. "Can I help you?"

"Can I see Miss Graham please?"

"You have an appointment?" she asked, checking her computer screen.

"Yes, at 1 PM. I'm Mat Daniels. I am a bit late, sorry."

"I can't see it... I'll just go get her, she's just going to lunch. There she is...Naiome? Could you come here a moment?"

There she was. Perfect hair, well-dressed, in her clean surroundings. Those pretty manicured finger-nails had never done a stroke of manual labour. That pretty nose had never had anything stronger than a nice perfume to draw into her lungs. Mat regarded her objectively. Clinically. The way she had looked at his old Dad.

"Mr Daniels? We haven't an appointment today?" She walked out from behind the desk to see him. Perfect.

"I just wanted to discuss my father's case, one more time."

"Your father? But..."

"Yes, my late father, the one we watched suffer for so long... but now it's your turn!"

Before anyone could react, Mat whipped the mask out and shoved it on her face. She gasped her breath in, beautiful, take it in, bitch, take it all in! He held her and tied the mask tight.

By then the security guards had been called, had him on the floor, whilst the women struggled with the knots and the young man screeched, "Scissors! For God's sake! SCISSORS!" whilst he fluffed around the desk drawers.

"Too late, bitch, too late!" Mat screamed. "Spend the next few years wondering! Do I have asbestosis? Will it kill me!" He felt delirious, fighting the security man's attempts to keep him on the floor. He gave the guy a good kick in the shins. He stumbled up on his feet, lurched over to Naiome. She stared at him with horrified eyes, wide above the white mask covering her nose and mouth.

 "The best bit?" he snarled, "The best bit?"  

"NO..." 

a guard tried to cover his mouth, but he bit down hard, yelled triumphantly...

"NO COMPENSATION!"