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hair, which is sandy
blonde and very fine. When we first met she used to favour
the Alice band and striped shirt with the collar turned up
look – she’s come a long way since then. I told her how good
she looked.
'Were you thinking of taking a siesta?’ I asked, when we’d
left our table and were walking slowly back across the terrace.
She sighed. 'I might lie down for a while.’
At the foot of the stone staircase that leads up to the villa’s piano nobile, Laura turned to me and said in a low, feeling
voice: 'Let it go, Eddie. Leave the past alone. Nothing you
or anyone can do is going to bring her back.’
A friend offering sensible advice.
    The moment we got inside the door of our suite, I locked
it. Laura stood waiting by the window, against the light.
She didn’t move away when I came up behind her. I took
the initiative, but I’ve no doubt it was what she wanted to
happen.
There was urgency, then the shared pleasure of release.
Perhaps I felt sorry for her, or for both of us, perhaps
she took pity on me, but we came out of our separate
fortresses and for a while forgot. Laura and I hadn’t made
love to each other for months. I find it difficult to write
about this.
I don’t want to keep saying that I loved my wife … I
did, but even before Sophie was murdered things had not
been brilliant between us. During the first days and weeks
after it happened, I depended on Laura to get through. We
clung to each other, literally clung to each other, but when
that no longer brought comfort, when the drug stopped
working, we retreated into ourselves, and grew further
apart.
We didn’t talk, not about what we’d just done.
Laura got up from the bed and went into the bathroom.
Naked she looked vulnerable and somehow very English.
She had a nearly perfect figure, yet she moved awkwardly
without clothes on. I told her I had some work to do. She
turned and smiled at me from the bathroom door, her
lavender-blue eyes unnaturally bright, and I felt a stab of
unspecific guilt.
There was love still, on both sides, only it was dying a little
every day.
After taking a shower, I went out onto the loggia with my
mobile and laptop and checked to see if Sam had left word.
There was nothing.
The next half-hour or so was taken up with business. I
dealt with my e-mails, then spoke to the London office on
the phone. The company I own, Beauly-Lister, pioneers
developable 'land with a view’ in the world’s most desirable,
which usually means unspoiled, locations. Our sector rivals
worry about return on cost of capital, land prices and
margin growth. We start from the premise that a magical
view is like a great work of art, almost but not quite beyond
price.
I let Audrey, my assistant, know what time our flight got
into Heathrow tomorrow morning so that the car could be
there to meet the plane.
While we were still talking, I received an incoming-mail
alert from Sam Metcalf, and hurried Audrey off the phone.
What Sam had to say was disappointingly brief.
    Look, I made a mistake . . . there’s really nothing to
discuss. Please don’t get in touch with me again. I’m
sorry, Sam.
    The e-mail came with an attachment which I opened at
once. It turned out to be another couple of lines of text. I
wondered why Sam hadn’t simply added them to her original
message. It was as if she’d had a change of heart.
    You can try this, she had written, I came across it while
weeding my Favourites list. Like I said, I think your daughter
left it on my comp.
    There followed, on a line by itself, the address of a
website:
www. homebeforedark. net. kg
    The graphics took a long time to download. I hadn’t any idea
what to expect. I was nervous that something might be
revealed about Sophie that I didn’t want to know. I felt a
wave of sadness at the thought of her having had secrets.
There was no home page as such, no titles welcoming you to the site, no tags or text of any kind, only a counter in the
bottom left-hand corner. It clocked me as the 572nd