Chapter 4
LACHLAN MORDEN
The plane hit the tarmac at Glasgow airport with a thud so strong that the bloke in the rugby top next to Lachlan gripped his arm, then flushed to the colour of his scarlet sweatshirt before clearing his throat and acting like it had never happened.
Lachlan went along with the pretence, continuing to stare out of the window at the thick flakes of snow that were falling on the runway, and beyond the perimeter fence, all the way to the white peaks of the hills in the distance.
The view reminded him of a previous time he’d landed here. Three years ago. He and Tanya had been on their way home from a winter ski break in Verbier and when they’d touched down in Glasgow, they’d been stunned to see a white-out that was just as stunning as the one they’d left in Switzerland.
Three years and a whole lifetime ago. Back then, the engagement ring he’d given Tanya a few days before, in front of a whole crew of cheering pals, was sparkling on her finger.
Under her navy sweatshirt, her tiny bump was gently growing.
And both of them had cheesy grins that probably made them fairly insufferable to everyone around them.
If that couple could have seen what was in front of them, they’d never have believed it.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a rather chilly, snowy Glasgow. The temperature outside is minus two degrees and the heavy snowfall is expected to continue throughout the day. Please remain seated, with your seatbelts fastened, until we come to a standstill at our allocated gate…’
‘Coming home or just visiting?’ It took Lachlan a moment to realise that the question was coming from the bloke in the red sweatshirt and was directed at him. And it took him another moment to settle on the correct answer.
‘Both. I’m from here, but I live in London now, so just up for a meeting. You?’ Reciprocating the question felt like the right thing to do, even though he really didn’t care and would much rather just keep to himself right now. He had too many other things to think about.
‘Just coming back from my stag week in Vegas. Had to fly via London though, so feels like my arse has been on a plane seat for days.’
Lachlan was in too deep not to ask the obvious question. ‘Congratulations. When are you getting married?’
‘Christmas Eve. But the missus insisted we had the stag do early in case my mates shaved off my eyebrows. Said I’d need a few weeks to grow them back.’
‘Smart lady.’
‘Aye, but worrying for nothing. Eyebrows are still there,’ he pointed at the bushy slugs above his peepers. ‘The legs are a different story right enough.’
Two of his buddies in the row behind them must have overheard that little exchange because they let out a loud, goading cheer, while a hand came from behind to scrub the head of the groom .
Another memory. His own stag party. Not quite Vegas, but a brilliant night out in Edinburgh with twenty or so friends and Tanya’s brothers. His own brother, Jason, hadn’t been able to make it, but Lachlan hadn’t missed him. Tanya and his mates were his family. The one he’d chosen for himself.
He gazed out of the window again, to the soundtrack of beeps from a dozen nearby phones as they all connected to the networks now that they’d landed.
He checked his phone screen, assuming there would be nothing there, but he was wrong.
Margaux. His friend since they were tossing a football back and forward over the fence that separated their homes growing up.
She’d offered to pick him up, but he knew he wanted a car for the day, so he’d declined and suggested meeting up later.
Still on for lunch? Let me know when and where and I’ll free up a space in my hectic diary. Xx
He texted back.
Hey. Just landed. Lunch sounds good. Will let you know as soon as meeting is done. Lx
At least that would be something to make this day worthwhile, because there was no other part of it that he wasn’t dreading.
The seatbelt sign clicked off as the plane came to a standstill and there was the usual scrum of people jumping up and jostling to get their luggage out of the overhead bins.
Lachlan reached down for the small backpack he’d stored under the seat in front of him.
He wasn’t going to be here for long. He hadn’t even brought a full change of clothes, just a sweater to pull on after the meeting so that he could get rid of the shirt and tie.
This was going to be one day, in and out. Home on the last flight tonight .
Although checking the weather ahead of time might have been an idea because in this suit, he was going to freeze his bollocks off out there today.
Forward planning was usually his thing, pretty essential in his work.
He was a builder, who predominately worked on bespoke new homes and extensions.
He’d started life as a joiner on his father’s building sites, and Martyn Morden had been a perfectionist who’d demanded top quality work, especially from his son.
Lachlan had always risen to the challenge, and had maintained those standards when he had branched out on his own, setting up his own construction firm when he was barely in his twenties.
More than a decade later, and now based in London, the manual work was still what he loved most, but he ran a small but mighty team of subcontractors that included electricians, plumbers and labourers.
He co-ordinated every job, but only after he’d worked with the client to make sure he knew exactly what they wanted, and that they both understood the end goal.
Today his only end goal was to avoid frostbite, then get back on a plane and get the hell out of here as soon as possible.
‘Good luck with the wedding. Hope it all goes well,’ he told the groom.
‘Thanks, pal,’ his travel companion with the intact eyebrows replied with a wink, and Lachlan thought this was the thing he missed most about Glasgow. You could share one conversation with someone and instantly you were elevated to ‘pal’ status.
Among a sea of puffa jackets reminding him of his poor planning skills, Lachlan made his way off the aircraft and along the long peninsula to the main terminal building.
He must have flown in and out of this airport a hundred times in his life, so he switched to autopilot: head down, just keep walking.
He’d already booked the car hire online, so he made his way straight to their desk on the ground floor, veering round the huge, sparkly silver Christmas tree that stood in the centre of the terminal hall.
If there was a desk that provided festive spirits, he should probably be first in the queue because celebrating special occasions seemed pointless now.
Christmas Day in London would be just another day of consciously avoiding other people’s happiness so that he wouldn’t be forced to think about losing his own. Denial was a much better place to be.
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 the screen 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 that the 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 inside him, 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.
He had a feeling deep in his gut that today was the day he would find out that breaking that vow was a mistake.