Page 7 of One Snowy Day
There were a couple of people ahead of him at the car hire booth, so he scrolled his phone, looking for any kind of distraction while he waited. Shit. Every single sports blog was carrying a story about his main client, a premier league football player called Dax Price, reporting that he’d been caught falling out of a casino at 3a.m. on Saturday morning, just hours before he’d played the worst game of his life in front of fifty thousand raging fans twelve hours later.
He was still reading about Dax’s antics, when another text popped in. Jason. His older brother.
Just checking you’re going to make it today?
His first reaction was to ignore it, but he knew his brother too well – if Jason didn’t get a reply, he’d be straight on the phone demanding to know what was going on and he’d hound Lachlan until he got an answer.
His thumb handled the situation, typing, ‘I’ll be there.’
As soon as he sent it, he saw that the previous text to his brother said exactly the same thing. ‘I’ll be there’. That one had been sent a few weeks ago, when he’d been notified of the details of his father’s funeral, a man that Lachlan had loved, despite his fair share of flaws.
His dad had been ruthless in business. A workaholic. Someone who had loved his sons in his own way, but had very much prioritised his work and ambition over his presence as a father. Their mum had been the glue that had held the family together, and after she died, five years ago now, his dad had remarried and been persuaded by his thirty-five-year-old second wife, Demi, to spend his semi-retirement in Monaco, swayed by the sunshine and the tax-free life. When Lachlan had received the phone call to tell him that his dad had quite literally dropped dead on the golf course, he’d offered to go to Monaco immediately, but his stepmother had insisted that she didn’t want ‘a whole big mourning drama at the house’. Instead, Demi had asked that the brothers just show up for the funeral – a small, impersonal affair with only the people Dad had met in Monaco. Jason had texted him with the details and Lachlan had replied that he’d be there, even though it felt so wrong. He couldn’t help thinking that his dad should have been buried in Glasgow, in the city he loved, but the choice hadn’t been his. Just as the choice to attend this meeting today hadn’t been his either.
The people in front of him at the car hire booth went off, car keys in hand and pushing two trolleys with a dozen pieces of luggage between them. He hoped they’d reserved a transit van because there was no way that lot was fitting in a Ford Focus.
Lachlan placed his driving licence down on the counter and smiled at the middle-aged bloke behind it. ‘Hi. I’ve got a car booked. Lachlan Morden.’
‘Good morning and welcome to sunny Glasgow. We’re all out of snowploughs, I’m afraid.’
Lachlan smiled. ‘That’s okay. I went for a standard saloon. Prefer things a bit more low-key.’
‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got then.’ He began tapping on thescreen in front of him. ‘Okay, well I have good news and bad news…’
And there it was, starting already. He’d hoped to at least get to his meeting before everything went to crap.
‘The bad news is that we’re all out of standard saloons. With the weather and my superior customer service skills, many people who’d booked smaller cars have upgraded to mid-size vehicles this morning.’
Lachlan had sudden visions of trying to fold his six-foot frame into a Fiat 500. That had happened to him once before, when he and Tanya were on holiday in Italy and he’d lost the feeling in his legs somewhere between Florence and Pisa.
‘But the good news is that because it’s most definitely our fault, and I can see you’re a member of our loyalty program, I can offer you a free upgrade this morning.’
Maybe today wasn’t going to be all bad after all. Not that Lachlan particularly cared about cars. He just needed something to get him from A to B without his knees being up somewhere around his ears.
‘Now, we have had a particularly busy weekend, so I only have a couple of options prepped and ready to go.’ He glanced at the screen again. ‘So the choice is a Mercedes two-seater convertible – we don’t get a lot of demand for them in Glasgow in December and probably not the best traction in this weather.’
Lachlan didn’t disagree. Plus, sports cars weren’t really his thing. He drove a Ford Ranger pick-up in London, big for the city, but essential for his work.
‘And the other one?’ he asked.
‘A Range Rover Discovery,’ the advisor announced with a pleased-as-punch grin.
Lachlan felt he should act appropriately grateful, given thatthe gent looked so chuffed. Besides, with the snow outside, a four-wheel drive could definitely be a better option.
‘Okay, I’ll take that, thank you. But can you add on the top level of insurance because I don’t fancy wrecking that in this weather and being left with the bill.’
‘Wise choice. If I could just have your credit card…’
Lachlan handed it over, then whisked through the formalities, before saying a thankful goodbye as he left with the car’s location map and key. Outside, he was slammed by the bitter cold, squinting against the torrent of snow hitting his face as he crossed the road, before cutting through the main car park, then back outside to the car hire company’s designated area. There, he saw the couple who had been ahead of him in the queue playing some kind of luggage Jenga as they tried to fit a dozen suitcases into a Dacia Duster.
He pressed the button on the key fob and watched as the lights of a black Range Rover Discovery flashed ahead of him, guiding him in. He threw his backpack into the back seat, then brushed the snow from his shoulders and hair before climbing into the driver’s seat. He started the engine, switched on the heating, and familiarised himself with the location of the windscreen wipers.
Okay, time to go. He plugged his phone into the car’s media system and called up his maps, then punched in the address of his first destination. Huntington Farrell, the legal firm that had represented his father’s affairs for decades.
The letter summoning him here today made it quite clear that his presence was required this morning. Apparently, his father had left explicit instructions that his will was to be read old-style, in the presence of his family. Lachlan had wanted to reply saying that he didn’t care. Not even a bit. But there was something insidehim, some last shred of loyalty to man who had given him half of his DNA.
He flicked the Range Rover into drive and gently pressed his foot on the accelerator, hearing the snow crunch under the tyres as he began to move off.
A year ago, he’d left Glasgow and made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t return.
