Chapter 11
Gabe arrived back at the planting site about five minutes before Donald Grant was due.
‘You timed that well,’ grinned Pete, who emerged from the shelter of the driving seat of his truck, taking the bag of food that Gabe passed over with a nod of gratitude.
‘Did they survive the rain?’ Gabe looked down the moor, where his group of workers was busily planting. The air was fresh, a smell of damp earth rising as the sunlight warmed the ground after the storm.
‘They all seem to be waterproof,’ said Pete, unwrapping his sandwich. ‘Thanks for this. Donald’s on the way. Got the maps okay?’
‘All sorted.’ Gabe indicated the truck. ‘And I’m pleased to report that they’re bone dry and ready for the meeting.’
‘Cool. Ah look, there’s Donald coming now, and he’s in the posh truck to impress the duke. You wait until you see the place, it’s insane.’
They watched as their boss’s matt grey Defender sped along, the huge engine making nothing of the steep incline that led up to the top of the moor.
‘Well, that was a bit of weather,’ said Donald Grant, calling out of the window. ‘That’ll be trial by fire for the recruits.’
He climbed out of the car and shook their hands in greeting. Twinkly eyed, with untidy sandy red hair and the ruddy complexion of a Highlander, he wore his habitual brown cord trousers with a tattersall checked shirt under a hunter green fleece gilet.
‘Luckily, it didn’t happen on day one or the young lads would have been drenched. As it is, I expect they’ll be heading straight back for a change of clothes before they take a trip to the pub for a drink this evening.’ Pete grinned.
‘Everyone warm enough?’ Donald scanned the moor, hands in the pockets of his trousers. He was forthright and could be brisk when he needed to be, but Gabe had already worked out after six months on the job that he had a good heart and kept an eye on the wellbeing of his workers. He’d already invited Gabe round to dinner a couple of times, insisting that his wife Lucy liked to get to know the people working for the business. They lived in a rambling, comfortably untidy house outside Applemore with their two young children, and Lucy had turned out to be an excellent cook.
‘Yeah, Una kitted the young lads with some waterproofs first thing this morning, so they were all set. Gabe’s been in town getting the maps and picked them up some snacks for break time in a moment. I’ll hand them out when you two head off.’
‘Excellent. Una’s a gem. I don’t know what we’d do without her.’
‘She’s a tyrant,’ snorted Pete, but with affection in his voice.
Donald looked at Gabe expectantly. ‘Right, we’d better get this show on the road. Got the maps?’
‘They’re in the back of the truck. Give me two secs.’
‘Chuck them in the back of mine then,’ said Donald, ‘and we’ll get on our way. Don’t want to be keeping the old boy waiting.’
Gabe opened the door of his truck and Stanley leapt out with excitement, tail wagging and his tongue lolling as he looked from one person to the other at the prospect of an adventure. He lifted his leg and peed extravagantly against the wheel of Donald’s discreet but massively expensive Defender. Donald gave a bark of laughter.
‘He can come along for the ride. Felix Lochbrannich loves dogs – it’ll be an adventure for him. Stick him on the back seat with Bess.’
Once Stanley had hopped onto the leather seats and sniffed a hello to Bess, Donald’s ancient yellow Labrador, Gabe put the maps safely out of reach and climbed into the passenger seat, belting himself in as Donald set off.
It wasn’t a common or garden Defender like the other two, which were used for runabouts in the forestry business. This one was a custom Twisted model with sleek leather seats and all the mod cons you’d expect in a high-end vehicle, only the matt grey paintwork was already splattered with moorland mud despite having clearly had a valet clean, and the cup holder held an assortment of plastic toys and a My Little Pony patterned lunchbox.
Donald followed Gabe’s gaze and smiled.
‘Lottie left it this morning when I was dropping her and Jamie at school. I had to be somewhere else, or I’d have dropped it in to the school office. So she had an emergency school lunch, which no doubt she’ll be delighted about, and I sneaked a bonus snack of Lucy’s home-baked chocolate brownies and a cheese and ham bagel on the way back from my meeting. Everybody wins in this game.’
He chortled at his own joke.
‘Anyway, sorry for hijacking you, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a word, plus I’d really like your thoughts on the Lochbrannich plans.’
Gabe felt his eyebrows lifting slightly, as if they were operating independently of him.
‘You would?’
‘Indeed. And I thought you’d like a chance to see what one of the bigger projects looks like.’
‘That would be great.’
‘You still enjoying it?’ Donald glanced over at him briefly.
Gabe nodded. ‘Loving it. I have to admit I was expecting to be a bit Billy-no-mates, turning up here on my own. But there’s always something going on, whether it’s the quiz night at the pub or stuff on at the outdoor centre. I’m keeping myself busy.’
‘Glad to hear it. I keep meaning to go on one of those mountain bike rides with Jack, but I’m not sure my knees are up to it.’
‘Never mind my knees,’ Gabe laughed. ‘My quads the next day after climbing the hill trails felt like lead.’
‘Keeps you fit though,’ Donald mused. ‘You don’t want to hit fifty and start falling apart.’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Look at the size of him!’ Donald pointed to the far left and slowed the car right down, silent for a moment. A huge stag stood by the edge of the wood, frozen to the spot and watching them intently.
‘You can’t beat moments like that.’ Donald shook his head in awe.
A moment later he looked down at his phone, which had been buzzing insistently.
‘Really sorry,’ he said, ‘I hate to be rude, but I really need to make a quick call. Una’s after my blood by the looks of it.’
‘No problem at all.’
Gabe turned to look out at the moorland, lost in thought. The road snaked up towards the solid grey of the hills. As they drove higher, tiny waterfalls tumbled down, splashing white against the peaty brown of the water that gathered below.
It had been an unexpected sort of day already. He could still picture the look of surprise on the pretty woman’s face in the supermarket when he’d almost tripped over her. Goodness knows why he’d offered her a lift – she must’ve thought he was a complete idiot, trying to pick up random strangers in the rain.
Donald was still talking into his headset, rattling off a list of instructions to Una, who would of course be taking them in her usual unflappable stride. Talking of Una… Gabe realised with a half-smile that he’d forgotten the sweatshirt she’d pressed on him so insistently. Something told him that Donald wouldn’t be remotely concerned.
They whizzed along the empty road in the cushioned splendour of Donald’s truck – his one indulgence, he’d called it, when Gabe had first arrived to take the job, showing it to him with a fond pat on the wing.
Gabe glanced at the clock on the dashboard, counting forwards and realising that it was one o’clock in the morning in New Zealand. He really needed to keep an eye on the time today and try to call him when Jacob got back and catch him before he set off for work. He’d sent Jacob a chatty message, with the news of what he’d been up to and a couple of photographs of Stanley on the beach, but in return had received an uncharacteristically brief reply simply saying ‘give me a ring when you have a moment’. Finding a moment when you had an eleven-hour time difference wasn’t as easy as one might imagine.
‘So sorry,’ said Donald, breaking into Gabe’s thoughts. ‘Here we are – well, here’s the start of the estate, anyway.’
If you had been driving past, Gabe reflected, you’d barely have noticed anything to indicate that you were driving onto the Highland home of one of the richest men in the country. They rumbled over a cattle grid. A discreet dark green sign with white lettering announced that this was part of the Lochbrannich Estate. They drove on, along a well-kept road, through a long stretch of moorland and then up into a stand of thick mixed forest. The sunlight, which had broken through the clouds of the earlier storm, shone in pale rays through the trees, flickering on the window as they headed on, pausing for a moment to allow a couple of deer to dart in front of them before they leapt back into the darkness of the wood and disappeared.
‘Wait for it,’ said Donald.
They crested the hill, and Gabe’s mouth fell open in surprise. Before them was a scene from a nature documentary. A storybook Highland glen stood before them, a picture of glassy blue-grey loch, flanked on either side by a patchwork of green fields, the familiar stone and heather of the moor, and deep green forest, all of which rose to meet the sky. The loch seemed to stretch out for miles, and in the distance the huge grey shoulders of distant mountains could be seen shrouded in a layer of pale white cloud.
‘Wow.’
Donald grinned. ‘Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Wait until you see the house.’
They forked left, driving along the side of the loch with the water on one side and some well-kept pasture on the other, and then they turned a bend and Lochbrannich House came into view. Tall and turreted, it looked like someone had hewn a Disney castle out of solid grey granite.