Losing My Identity Read online

  ‘Professor Gill!’ Phyllida was in full headmistress mode. ‘Hush!’

  ‘No giggling in the corridor,’ Harry said.

  Then they were onto the platform, and every one of them had eyes glued to their conductor’s baton.

  All through the two pieces they sang, Leila was as conscious of his presence as she would have been of a forest fire behind her. She was aware of his voice among all the others. She felt his breath on her neck. Radiant heat; superficially comforting, intrinsically dangerous. Where was the off-switch?

  The Kelvin Chorale had been last to perform, so they didn’t have long to wait for the results. No one was particularly gung-ho. The choir had entered the competition year on year and never been placed in the top four. When the results were declared, they were placed second.

  ‘See?’ Andrew said triumphantly. ‘Leila has brought us luck!’

  Luck! Leila was disappointed. She wasn’t used to coming second in any test.

  She looked round for Harry, but he’d disappeared.

  Leila hadn’t seen Harry for more than a fortnight. The choir had been given a two-week break from practice after the competition. Time off for good behaviour, Harry had muttered as Phyllida informed them of this boon. That Saturday there was to be a celebratory meal.

  She was glad she’d taken the trouble to dress up. The Hilton Central Hotel was posher than she remembered it as being. And everyone else from the choir was dressed up too. Not to the extent of long dresses or dinner jackets and bow ties, but smart. Buoyed up by her success in not falling over on the night of the competition, she’d lashed out a couple of hundred on scarlet shoes with three inch heels. With her black silk, Chinese-style trouser suit, she reckoned they looked pretty damn amazing. She’d put her hair up again, and at the last moment she’d ditched Flora’s rubies in place of a plain gold torc she’d bought on impulse in a jewellery shop in Inverness years before, and never worn.

  They weren’t all to be seated at the same table; Phyllida directed everyone to their places like an efficient headmistress. The invitations had allowed for ‘plus one’. However, Leila was far from being the only choir member who was alone. At least half a dozen of the women (including Phyllida), plus Andrew and a couple of other men. Plus Harry.

  She ended up sitting between Andrew and another of the tenors whose name she couldn’t remember. Rodney. (She had to wait until Andrew addressed him by name, so as not to make a fool of herself.)

  She struggled not to look too obviously for Harry. He was sitting beside Phyllida. But of course he was. He flirted with her too. Shameless. Where was the wife? At home with the kids, no doubt.

  Leila found she didn’t have much of an appetite. For the food anyway. She’d never been good at small talk. Andrew kept refilling her glass every time it was halfway empty. She kept half-emptying it. By the time she realised the food-alcohol balance was very, very wrong for her, the room was swaying ever so slightly.

  Phyllida tapped on the side of her glass. ‘Can I have your attention, everyone! I’d like to propose a vote of thanks to Professor Gill for providing us with this lovely evening out. I’m sure he’s too modest to want me to mention this, but he arranged and paid for everything. Thank you, Harry.’ She turned and kissed him on the cheek, then raised her glass. Leila managed to stand up with everyone else, then sat down more heavily than she’d meant to.

  In that moment, she knew beyond a doubt she was going to throw up. She managed to stand up again, but the room was spinning. Harry appeared beside her and slid his hand under her elbow unobtrusively. He guided her swiftly and efficiently out of the room, and she reached the ladies’ just in time. After retching her stomach dry, she felt worse than ever. She needed air. He was waiting in the corridor outside.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I’ve a bit of an upset stomach. I just need some fresh air.’

  He grinned, but his eyes were grave. ‘You need an Alka-Seltzer, I’d say. Get your coat and I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I’ll get a taxi.’

  ‘No way I’m letting you go off in a taxi in that state.’

  She wriggled away from him and stood in the outer doorway, taking in gulps of air. Her head spun more crazily than ever.

  ‘For God’s sake, Leila. Where’s your cloakroom ticket?’

  And he actually grabbed her bag and started fishing in it. She snatched it back and lost her balance. He propped her none too gently against the side of the doorway. He had the cloakroom ticket in his hand.

  ‘Don’t dare move. I’ll let Phyll know we’re off, and fetch your coat.’

  ‘Oh, piss off, Harry. I’ll get my own coat in a minute, once I’ve managed to grab a cab.’ She began giggling inordinately at her little poem.

  She had an account with Phoenix taxis, and their app on her phone. Four minutes, it said. Harry was back in slightly less than that time. In fact, he and the Phoenix cab arrived more or less simultaneously.

  ‘That’s my transport,’ Leila said, reaching for her jacket. Harry had donned a smart short raincoat. He really was a flashy dresser.

  ‘I’ll send him away.’ He strode over to the driver’s window. There was a brief conversation. Possibly money changed hands.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ she said when he rejoined her. ‘I suppose that’s the last time they’ll turn out for me.’

  ‘Nonsense. My car’s about a hundred yards away – do you think you can walk that far?’

  ‘I’m not drunk, you know. Anyway, I’m not getting in a car with you. You’ve been drinking.’

  ‘I’ve been drinking water.’ He helped her into her jacket, buttoned it up as if he was her father, then took her arm firmly and led her along the street. He opened the door of a dark coloured SUV, helped her in and leaned across to fasten the seat belt. Immaculate interior. Full leather. He obviously didn’t stint. Leila settled back.

  ‘Right, m’lady. Where to?’

  ‘Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.’

  ‘Great. Where’s “home”?’

  Leila mumbled her address.

  ‘I have no idea where that is. What’s your postcode?’

  He punched it almost viciously into the satnav screen and took off at a speed she’d not have risked in town. He glanced at her from time to time as he drove. ‘Let me know if you feel sick again? Let me know in time to stop.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t mess up your precious car. You realise that lot will gossip, since I disappeared with you?’

  He didn’t reply. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking why his wife hadn’t come with him. She didn’t want him to imagine she cared, or had even noticed. She felt her eyes well up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is taking you very much out of your way. Someone said you live in the West End?’

  He tutted. ‘There’s not too much traffic at this time on a Saturday night.’

  As they drove past the long, under-lit frontage that was Tennent’s Brewery on Duke Street, he tutted again. ‘When you insist on traipsing home on foot after choir practice, you don’t actually walk this route alone?’

  ‘It’s perfectly safe. I’ve walked this road since I was a teenager.’

  He snorted. ‘Glasgow’s a rather different place nowadays.’

  ‘It’s a lot safer now than it used to be, this part.’

  ‘Well, as I’ve told you before, I think it’s very unwise,’ said Harry.

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘Hmmm. So you said. I hope, at the very least, you’d never try it when you’d had a drink.’

  ‘I don’t drink, usually.’

  ‘I realise that. I wouldn’t have brought you home otherwise.’

  Within a quarter of an hour, he’d pulled up outside her door, double-parked. He unclicked her seat belt. ‘Can you make it up the stairs?’

  ‘I don’t need to. Mine’s the one with its own door. I’m not inviting you in, by the way.’

  ‘I have no intention of coming in. Good
night, Leila. I’ll wait till I see you safely inside and a light on. Have you got your key to hand?’

  By the time she went through to the sitting room window, his tail lights were vanishing round the corner. She was beginning to sober up. She wept tears of rage over having made such a fool of herself.

  That’s the end of a beautiful friendship then. If he’s teetotal, he must think I’m a lush. And she still hadn’t figured whether he was just another married Lothario, or a genuinely kind and considerate man.

  Leila felt ill with embarrassment the next morning. She wanted to call him, to apologise, but of course she didn’t have his mobile number. She could have got it from Phyllida, perhaps – but she wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of refusing to divulge it. She had searched the BT residential pages, but his name wasn’t listed, any more than hers was. Not that she’d have tried a landline number anyway – no way she wanted to get his wife on the end of the line.

  Harry was missing from the next practice night. Leila felt awful. Had she not been able to persuade herself it was his work, not her, she’d never have gone back to the Kelvin Chorale. New pieces to learn too, for some bloody concert after Easter. They were going to include the Ave Verum and Fair Phyllis, but half a dozen Gershwin numbers from the In The Mood songbook had been added.

  However, the following week, there he was. He glanced at Leila, then looked quickly away. She sought him out at the coffee break.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to apologise to you.’

  The smile came almost too quickly. She could see him trying to hold back. ‘Apologise?’

  ‘I was so terribly rude to you. Disrespectful. You arranged that lovely evening for all of us, and I spoilt it for you and meant you had to leave early. I can’t apologise enough. I’m so sorry, Harry.’

  ‘I’d have left early anyway. I had to go to Bristol the next day to get ready to spend hours being questioned in a court on Monday. In any case, I feel I was somewhat to blame – I should never have let that idiot Andrew monopolise you. Sitting there with his bloody arm round your shoulders, and leering down your cleavage. I shouldn’t have left it up to Phyll to sort out who was sitting where. I take it you were all right once you were home? I wanted to phone you to check, but I’d forgotten to get your number. You’re not in the book. Nor am I, I suppose.’

  ‘I was fine. I’m not used to drinking. I hadn’t had that much.’

  ‘I realised that. I thought maybe you’d been under a lot of stress at work, or something? I know vets suffer just as much stress as doctors.’

  ‘I do research work nowadays. No night calls.’

  ‘You must tell me about that sometime.’

  He’d taken his phone out of his pocket and held it out to her. ‘Put your number in now, so I have it. If you’re happy to do that? Then I’ll text you, and you’ll have my number too.’

  After hesitating for just a moment, she did as he asked. They both sang particularly well during the second half.

  She waited for him to walk her to the door. ‘Harry, I’ve been meaning to ask. I thought you might know about this, because of your work.’

  She told him about Beatrice. She told him she was haunted by the idea that her friend had taken her own life, that she might have lain there for weeks without being found. She told him her letter to the solicitors produced nothing useful, and the letter to the local Coroner’s office didn’t even get acknowledged. She told him she’d been reading about a case where the only near neighbour suffered from anosmia, and they didn’t find the body upstairs until decomposition liquids actually seeped through the ceiling…

  ‘Is it ghoulish of me to want to find out?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s natural. You were her friend.’

  ‘Not a very good friend, it turns out.’

  He pressed her shoulder briefly. ‘We can’t be our brother’s keepers. Or our sister’s. I’ll see what I can find out. Can I drop you home?’

  ‘I have the car this week,’ she lied, and sped off into the night.

  Four

  Just another week until the Easter concert. That night’s practice had been more than usually exhausting.

  Harry touched Leila’s arm as she collected her coat. ‘Can we speak for a moment?’

  She stopped, but he motioned towards the doorway with his eyes.

  ‘I found out a little. What you’d asked me about your friend?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m parked just round the corner. Come and sit in the car with me while I tell you. That way, no one will interrupt us.’

  They walked out of the building side by side and emerged into a perfect Glasgow dusk; cobalt and dove grey sky, heat still bouncing off the buildings from an unseasonably warm day. Harry clicked his car keys, and the lights on a dark blue Range Rover Evoque flashed in response.

  ‘How on earth do you do that?’

  Harry looked nonplussed. ‘What? Unlock the car doors remotely? What the heck do you drive?’

  ‘No! Find a parking space right beside wherever you happen to be going.’ She peered at the windscreen. Nothing except a neat little permit for parking at Glasgow University’s Gilmorehill campus and another for the Southern General Hospital. ‘Does the hospital permit let you park anywhere, like these “Doctor on Call” stickers you see?’

  ‘Of course not. I never have any problem finding a space.’

  ‘It’s the whole reason why I never bring the car into town if I can help it. How do you know where to look for a free place?’

  He laughed a touch nervously. ‘I drive to wherever I’m going, and I park.’

  She was still shaking her head as he opened the passenger door for her. The car was immaculate. She was doubly glad she’d managed to empty her stomach beforehand the night he’d taken her home.

  ‘Well?’ she asked once he was settled beside her.

  ‘The first thing to say is that your friend hadn’t lain undiscovered for terribly long. Days, not weeks.’

  ‘How many days, roughly?’

  ‘Possibly ten or twelve. Perhaps I should have said not months.’

  ‘So she’d have started to…?’

  He laid his hand briefly on her arm. ‘You know about these things, being a medical person yourself. There’s no point in my saying “No, she’d have looked as fresh as the day she turned sixteen”. But it wasn’t as bad as some cases you hear of.’

  Not like that poor woman in London in 2006 then. She’d lain for three years.

  ‘She’d died at home?’

  He hesitated, made some sort of unnecessary adjustment to the driving mirror, then sighed and gazed straight ahead. ‘She had. Her radio had been left on. That’s why the neighbours didn’t notice for a while. Apparently it wasn’t all that unusual for them not to see her around. She kept herself to herself. Increasingly, by the sound of it. She’d become a bit of a recluse.’

  ‘And the second thing?’

  ‘You were correct in your assumption. It was suicide.’

  There, but for the grace of God… But Leila didn’t believe in God. Although she’d also heard the saying that there are no atheists in a foxhole… ‘Oh God! How?’

  ‘Sleeping pills and a bottle of gin. She’d just have fallen asleep. She wouldn’t have suffered.’

  He didn’t do anything so crass as to put his arm round her, but he did stretch it along the back of the seat, and touched her shoulder. Then he reached into his pocket and handed her a pristine hankie. He left her to snivel quietly into it for a minute or two.

  ‘It’s the ultimate selfish act,’ he added in his scalpel voice.

  ‘I suppose you see a lot of it?’

  He didn’t answer immediately. ‘I do. And I also see how it destroys the people who are left. Family and friends. Sometimes colleagues too.’

  ‘If I had just paid more attention, I might have been able to prevent it. I should have gone to see her when she needed me, or invited her to Glasgow to stay for as long as she wanted.’

  ‘T
hat’s the worst folly, to think you could have stopped her.’

  ‘But I might have.’

  ‘I doubt it. The ones who manage it successfully are usually pretty determined. Even their families can’t stop them. You can’t blame yourself in the least.’

  ‘Such a waste.’

  ‘The waste is you blaming yourself. Your friend was an adult. She made her own decisions. Do you have your car with you this evening?’

  Leila shook her head.

  ‘Come for a drive with me then. I don’t want to let you go home on your own after hearing this news. You don’t have anyone waiting for you at home, do you?’

  How the hell did he know that? Was she such an obvious old maid? She shook her head again. But she also contrived to pull herself together and look dubious.

  ‘Come on, Leila,’ he added. ‘You know me well enough. Don’t worry. I’ll get you home before midnight, in case you turn into a pumpkin.’

  ‘Won’t your wife wonder where you are if you’re late?’

  He guffawed. Not the reaction she was expecting. ‘I shouldn’t think so. She’s been dead for over three years.’

  She felt the colour flood up her face. ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.’ She looked pointedly at his left hand.

  ‘The ring?’ He groaned. ‘I realised, after your reaction that first night. I don’t know why I was still wearing it. Partly force of habit, I suppose. But mainly because I do some teaching at the university. Every last man on the staff is wary these days, because we’re dealing with impressionable young female students. I guess I saw it as a bit of an insurance policy. You have to be so careful. Make sure you’re never in an office alone with a female student with the door closed, that sort of thing. It’s all a bit nerve-wracking.’

  ‘Why have you stopped wearing it on Thursday evenings?’

  He wriggled in his seat. ‘Because I realised you’d noticed. I know, it was stupid of me. I’m not married, Leila.’

  ‘But you have children at home? I assumed they must be young.’