I reached up to touch the blunt ends. He’d suggested getting it cut about a fortnight earlier. My stomach had sunk at the time, but I’d known he’d been right. It was time I went for something more sophisticated. Even though I’d lost about fifteen centimetres, it was still hanging just below my shoulders, and I’d begun to straighten it religiously.

  ‘Up would be better, don’t you think?’ Justin said, tipping his head to one side.

  To be honest, I didn’t really mind which way I wore my hair, but I could see his point. With the long dress, maybe something more formal would be appropriate. I headed over to the dressing table and began pulling my hair into a low twist. When I’d finished, Justin came to stand behind me, and he placed his hands on my shoulders, and we both looked at each other in the mirror. ‘There. Perfect. You look wonderful.’ He placed a soft kiss on my temple and then went off to find his cufflinks.

  ‘Ready?’ Justin said as we stepped from the car he’d ordered to take us to The Fire Station.

  I nodded, clutching Octavia to me. ‘I’m feeling good,’ I said. ‘Confident.’ At least, that was what I was telling myself. Fake it ’til you make it, right?

  ‘Enough to give it a go without the track?’ he asked, smiling hopefully at me.

  I considered his words carefully before I answered. ‘I want to be. For you, I really do, but …’

  ‘But?’

  I shook my head and squeezed the violin case tighter. ‘Sorry.’

  He nodded, placed his hand on the small of my back, and ushered me inside.

  The theatre at The Fire Station was small compared to most auditoriums, but it still seemed vast to me when I stepped into it an hour before the preview was about to start. The stage was at ground level, marked out by large sheets of specialised dance flooring and draping black wings. The seating bank was similar to ones I’d seen in schools or other community spaces and could be collapsed back against the wall when not in use, creating extra room for rehearsals.

  It was a functional space, not a red curtain or a hint of gold leaf in sight. I was grateful for that as I stood behind one of the wings and the auditorium slowly filled. On the other side, Haru was ready in his costume, warming up. I kept my eyes on him, finding comfort in his slow and methodical movements, and attempted to convince myself I could emulate his professionalism. It was a heartfelt piece, haunting and lyrical, and only ten minutes long. This was the only solo dance on the programme. After that, there were various group dances. By the time they got to the end of the evening, the audience would have forgotten about me and my violin playing. I just needed to get things into perspective.

  At the appointed time, the house lights dimmed, and a hush fell. There was just enough of a residual glow to make out the front row from where I was standing, and I spotted Justin, sitting front and centre, his handsome face tense. I knew he couldn’t see me, but I sensed he was looking in my direction. It gave me strength.

  The stage manager gave me a nod. There was a small X in tape on the floor where I was to stand stage left, in the back corner. The lighting was low for this piece, with none near the backdrop, so Justin has assured me I would only be a silhouette.

  The stage manager gave me a thumbs up, so I lifted Octavia to my shoulder, closed my eyes and listened carefully for the opening notes of the track above my thundering pulse.

  I opened my eyes again. Why hadn’t it started? I glanced towards the stage manager and found him frowning at me. He made an urgent, ‘do something’ kind of gesture, but it made no sense to me. I couldn’t do anything without the track.

  There had been silence in the auditorium at first, a sense of expectation and anticipation, but now the crowd began to whisper and fidget. I felt as if every eye was on me.

  What was wrong? Was there a technical problem? I tried to send all these questions to the stage manager with my eyes, but his arm movements just grew more and more frantic.

  I tore my eyes from him and looked at Justin instead. I’d adjusted to the darkness enough by that point to make out his features. He was staring back at me, looking distraught. ‘Please,’ he mouthed, his expression imploring.

  I had no choice. I couldn’t wait for them to sort out whatever was wrong with the music. I drew my bow across Octavia’s strings, hitting the first long note.

  Come on, I told myself, telling my body to relax, my fingers to grip the bow lightly. Do this for Justin.

  And, somehow, my self-lecture worked. The first few bars weren’t great, but they were audible, and as time went on, muscle memory took over, my fingers and arm moving as if they hardly belonged to me. I was doing it. I was playing.

  It was as wonderful as Justin had said it would be. There was something special about playing live while I saw Haru bring out the emotion and rhythm of the piece with his body, and it kept me anchored, not thinking about where I was and how many people were watching.

  At least, it did until someone in the audience coughed. It was loud and brash, not a polite little noise hidden beneath a hand, and while I knew it was unlikely my music-school bully could have tracked me down, but in that moment, Charlie Banister was right there, watching me, taunting me.

  I was right in the middle of one of the trickiest sections of the piece, and while I didn’t stop playing, I hesitated, losing the flow. Haru had to add an extra turn to compensate.

  I glanced across at Justin. He was looking tense and unhappy on the front row, and all I could think about, despite his support during the last few weeks, was how my doom-and-gloom prophecy was coming true. I was letting him down. I was ruining his big night. Why had I thought I could do this …? I was rubbish. Useless.

  Then, as a whole, the audience took a sharp intake of breath. I wondered what had happened. Had Haru tripped? A quick check to the far side of the stage reassured me he hadn’t, and it took a couple more moments before I realised what was going on.

  My arms were by my side, bow and violin hanging limply. I’d stopped playing.

  But Haru … Haru was still moving, never missing a beat or a movement, his arms and legs sweeping in graceful arcs as he turned and leapt. And I … I was standing there, useless and broken, proving all my doubters right.

  As I watched Haru, I realised that the audience hadn’t begun to shuffle and whisper as I’d expected them to. They were transfixed by the beauty of his dancing. He moved in silence, the only noise his bare feet brushing against the floor. He was braver than I would ever be.

  Maybe I was nothing. Maybe I was horribly broken. I couldn’t pretend to be anything else after failing so spectacularly in front of all these people. But maybe I could carry on too, like this courageous dancer. Maybe, even broken, I could still play the violin.

  As I watched him, I could hear the music playing inside my head, and it began to swell inside me. I lifted my arms and, keeping my eyes on Haru, I drew my bow across the strings.

  The atmosphere in the room changed and the audience sat up straighter in their seats, surprised but also energised. Even Haru’s dancing took on a greater intensity, as if he was inhabiting the movements more strongly. All of this spurred me on. I closed my eyes, and I played. I played for my life. And for Justin.

  I lost all sense of time and space. All that existed was the music. I felt it soar and swoop within me, and with it came a sense of peace, a sense of self that had been missing for far too long.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Now.

  BEN WAS NAILING a stretch of skirting in the kitchen of cottage number two. He’d have to give the buildings proper names at some point, something Scottish sounding that the tourists would like, but he’d always been better with pictures than words, so for now, he just mentally referred to the rentals as one, two and three.

  He really wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and had missed the tack more times than he’d hit it. Letting out a low huff, he dropped the hammer and sat back on his haunches. He’d slipped out of the B&B without having breakfast that morning, which meant he hadn’t seen Alice since she’d stormed out of the garden the evening before. But he hadn’t wanted an audience. He’d go and find her around lunchtime when she’d finished helping Norina. If she really was going to leave, he’d like to clear the air between them. He was hoping he could talk her into remaining in Invergarrig for at least a few more days, which would give PC Wilson a chance to come up with something concrete.

  He stood up and scrubbed his face with his hand. How should he handle this? What should he do? Because when she’d shouted at him, she’d let go of the necklace she’d been fiddling with, and while he’d caught glimpses of a chain around her neck, he’d never laid eyes on the pendant at the end of it until that moment.

  It was a bee. A tiny silver bee. He would have recognised it anywhere.

  His heart had stuttered, leaving him speechless as she’d stalked away.

  It was her.

  Lili.

  For some reason, he couldn’t get his head around that. Which was totally ridiculous, seeing as he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since he’d run into her outside the café. In his gut, he’d known it was her, but the reasonable part of his brain – the part that knew this was too much of a one-in-a-million coincidence to be true – had told him to shelve that idea, let the police and doctors solve the riddle. Maybe he’d wanted to leave the question of her identity unanswered and get on with the practical problem of helping her get home, because maybe it would have been easier all around if it wasn’t Lili after all.

  But now he had solid proof.

  He swore under his breath and paced around the tiny kitchen. What was he going to do? About her … about everything?

  He’d got no further to working that out when there was a knock at the door. When he answered it, he found Alice … Lili … standing there with a takeaway cup from The Thistle Café. She held it out to him. ‘Peace offering. Black Americano. Norina said it was your favourite.’

  He accepted it from her without a word, unable to take his eyes off her.

  Even though he’d spent a lot of the last couple of days in her company, it was like seeing her for the first time again. It took him right back to that moment when he’d been leaning over his camera in the garden of St Dunstan-in-the-East, how she’d completely taken his breath away, even when she’d been stung by that wasp, and he’d leapt into action, grasping at any excuse to talk to her.

  She looked at the floor. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that. Not after all you and your family have done for me. All I could think about is finding out who I am. I’m just so desperate to find some answers.’

  He nodded. So was he. Even though she was standing in front of him, it made no sense.

  He’d been there on the twelfth of July, just as they’d promised they would be. He’d waited the whole stupid day in that garden, right until the church bells had struck midnight, and then he’d sloped off back to his hotel, alone.

  But he’d never blamed her for not showing. If there was anyone to point the finger at for messing up what they might have had, it was him. It was all on him. So it made even less sense she was now here in Invergarrig. On some subconscious level, had she come searching for him? And if she had, what did that mean?

  ‘I do understand. A little …’ He’d been grumpy and low for ages when he’d come back to Invergarrig. Partly the trauma of losing his sister – although, if he was honest, he’d known how that story was going to end for years; he just hadn’t been able to admit it to himself – and partly the sense that his whole life had changed, which meant he’d had to change along with it. For months he’d been unsure of who he was and what his purpose was. How much harder must it be for her, with nothing solid to anchor herself to the life she’d left behind? ‘I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have used the word “stupid”.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, giving him the merest hint of a smile. ‘And you made some really good points. I’ve spent the last hour or so thinking about it, talking it over with Norina.’

  Ben’s heart lifted at the thought she might have listened.

  ‘But …’

  Uh-oh. There was a word he didn’t want to hear. ‘But …?’

  She looked at him bleakly. ‘I can’t stay here mooching off you and your family. I have to find my way back to my own life.’

  He knew she was right. He couldn’t keep her here with him indefinitely, even though he now realised that was exactly what he’d been hoping for.

  ‘So I’m going to London, and from there on to the wedding venue.’ She paused a moment before carrying on. ‘Norina and I thought it might be better to aim for the rehearsal on Thursday evening – fewer people and no risk of spoiling the big day. Someone there should know who I am. Either the bride or the groom must have added me to the guest list.’

  ‘But what if you’re just a plus one? Someone’s girlfriend or partner they’ve never met before?’

  She shrugged helplessly. ‘You could be right. But then why would I have a note about the wedding rehearsal? I know it’s a risk, but I need to do this.’

  But I don’t want you to go.

  He’d only just found her again after more than five years of hoping and searching. Trying to find someone called ‘Lili’ in a city of nine million people had been impossible, not when all you had to go on was a first name, and even that was possibly a shortening of her name. Hadn’t she tried to tell him something along those lines as he’d run away from her at the airport? He’d tried every permutation he could think of: Lillian, Lilias, Emily, even Delilah … and nothing. How could he let her leave when even she couldn’t give him more than he already knew? He couldn’t let her disappear a second time.

  But he didn’t ask her not to go. Partly because of what the doctor had said, but partly because of what had occurred to him earlier: if she was a plus one at the wedding, it meant she was probably somebody’s girlfriend. Possibly even their wife.

  He had no idea where life had taken her in the last five years, did he? He’d travelled all over, and of course he’d met other people after he’d finally given up looking for her. It was logical she might have done the same.

  And while she was in a vulnerable state, unable to confirm or deny if there was someone else in her life, it would be totally out of order to make any kind of move on her, to reveal his feelings in any way. He already sensed she felt attached to him. It would be easy to exploit that. But no way was he going to be that guy.

  ‘I’m going to get the bus to Glasgow,’ she said, and his stomach hollowed. ‘From there, I’ll get the train. Norina has given me some wages for the last couple of days, and she bought an advance ticket for me. I’ll pay her back when I get back home … wherever that is. Please believe that.’

  ‘Of course I believe it.’ That was the least of his worries. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘The train leaves from Glasgow Central at six-forty.’

  ‘Six-forty today?’

  She nodded, her eyes large.

  ‘But today is Tuesday. The rehearsal isn’t until Thursday. Why the rush?’

  Her expression changed, just the way it had done in the garden before she’d stormed off.

  Calm down, you idiot, he told himself. If she leaves now, you might never see her again. Is this how you want to leave things?

  There would be no hope for anything in the future then. And if all her memories did come back in a rush, she’d forget that they’d ever met again. He’d go back to being the guy who’d let her down, and that was the last thing he wanted. ‘Sorry,’ he said, making himself take a slow breath. ‘I don’t mean to get so …’

  ‘I know you’re trying to protect me, Ben, and I really appreciate all you’ve done for me, but …’ She looked away from a second. ‘This sounds horrible to say, but I’m not your responsibility.’

  Ouch. True, but … ouch.

  ‘And I don’t need to be told what to do,’ she added. ‘I can make my own mind up about this.’

  She waited, staring intently at him. He nodded just once. Message received and understood. He had to respect that, just as he had to respect her decision not to turn up at St Dunstan’s a year after they’d first met.

  ‘Norina has a friend who runs a boutique hotel in Kensington. He’s going to put me up for a couple of nights.’

  Of course … Marco. He and Norina had worked at the same hotel thirty years ago. He’d occasionally taken advantage of Marco’s generosity himself when he’d been in London. At least she was going to be somewhere safe.

  He had to let her choose for herself and hope that if fate had brought her back to him after all this time, it wasn’t for nothing. Not that he actually believed in fate. But he believed in … this. Whatever was happening here. What they’d had in those stolen hours in London. Maybe the universe would be kind?

  ‘Will you let us know you get there safely? Whether you find your family or not?’

  She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘I wrote the number for the phone Norina gave me down, you know, just in case you …’ She trailed off, looking a bit shy.

  ‘Thanks.’ He took it from her. ‘And let me put mine in yours.’ This time he wasn’t making that stupid mistake. He quickly tapped it into the handset and gave it back to her. ‘Call anytime if you need anything.’

  Be patient, he told himself. He’d found her. He had her number. At least this time, they really would be able to keep in touch. And maybe it would be better this way? If she got her memory back, she’d remember him from before, wouldn’t she? And then he could explain what had gone wrong five years ago. God, he hoped she’d understand, maybe even forgive him. Maybe they would have a second chance; it just wasn’t going to be right this very moment.

  Besides, there was Willow … She needed to be the centre of his love and focus at the moment. The rest could come later.

  ‘Of course I’ll call and let you know what happens.’ She stepped towards him, and his heart began to thud like a jackhammer. ‘Ben … I’m so grateful. I will never forget what you and your family have done for me.’ And then she began to laugh. ‘At least, I hope I won’t …’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35