The Guardians

The letter arrived a few days after my twenty-first birthday.  It was in a plain white envelope and I  knew it had to be official because it was addressed to Paterson McLennan Esq., 15 Moncur Crescent, Perth.  Only one or two of the teachers in my early school years had ever used my full name; I’ve always been called Pat.  The postmark was the previous day and the address was printed, obviously by a computer.  Having dealt with the remaining items of the morning mail – two bills and three bits of junk mail - while working through a leisurely breakfast I opened it with considerable curiosity. 

There was no heading on the printed A5 sheet of plain white paper.  The letter read as follows:

Dear Mr. McLennan,

If you will attend Suite 16 at the Plaza Hotel in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, at 11.30 a.m. on Sunday 2 October 2015 you may learn of something to your advantage.

There will be a fee of 1,000 euros for attending, payable on arrival, and you will be provided with a free lunch.

Please bring this letter with you when you come.

Yours sincerely,

Signed: A.Smith.

To say I was intrigued would be putting it mildly.  My immediate reaction was that it was some kind of hoax and I was particularly suspicious of the fact that the signature was typed.  However, I made up my mind almost immediately that I would go.  I knew the Plaza, though I hadn’t been inside it at any time.  Built in 2008 it was one of those modern brick and glass monstrosities so beloved by architects these days.  A thirty-mile drive on a Sunday morning would be pleasant, and if indeed the letter was genuine 1,000 euros was an attractive proposition to an unemployed clerical worker like me.  An added plus was that the catering at the Plaza was reputed to be superb and I do enjoy good food, of which I had sampled very little recently in my impoverished state.