It was not going to be her, and yet there was the smallest of chances. Perhaps this would be the moment when she walked in with a breezy explanation and salvaged it all, and I got to go home. Maybe, I thought, she was ringing the bell rather than using her key as a gesture of sheepishness, because she knew she had done something bad by not letting Sam know what had happened to her.Lara had always been full of life and energy. The air around her sparkled with bright white light. If she were there now she would be in a cloud of apologetic maroon. That would be fine.Sam stayed on the sofa, conspicuously pretending to be casual. I made my steps stay measured as I strolled to the front door, past a formal photograph of the two of them at their wedding, past a framed film poster of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Neither of us alluded to the fact that this was the first approach of the outside world since she had gone. This was, in a way, much the closest she had been to coming back.There were two police officers.
