‘I enjoyed myself,’ he said quietly. He switched off the music, picked up the mini speaker and pulled on his coat. ‘See you at Rob and Leesa’s wedding.’

Though thrown by such sudden departure preparations, Hannah’s attention was grabbed by his final words. ‘You’re going to the wedding?’

He opened the door, turning the sign to öppet. ‘Rob’s been kind enough to invite Josie and me. Sell well.’ Then he was gone into the bright, freezing morning, his hair flowing like gold in the winter sun, leaving her still calling her thanks.

Customers began to trickle into the shop as soon as Nico left.

A couple told Hannah they’d never seen her shop before – she didn’t tell them it had been there for ten months – and one telephoned friends to abandon Västerlånggatan for the hidden gem of Hannah Anna Butik. Between ringing up sales she hurried to replace sold items with others of sizes and colours to maintain Nico’s magic.

She wished she’d taken his phone number so she could text: Clever clogs! Things are flying off the shelves before trade slowed to its more usual pace. But the tide of customers never dried up. Her takings didn’t actually double, she saw when she finally took a reading from the till at the Sunday closing hour of five p.m., but this had been her best Sunday’s trading since Hannah Anna Butik opened its doors. Sales were up sixty-six per cent on the Sunday before.

Sixty-six per cent!

Her heart soared. Whether from early Christmas shopping, a cruise liner disgorging shopping-hungry passengers or Nico’s magical merchandising, sales were up. ‘Keep this up and you’ll be in Västerlånggatan in a year,’ she told herself.

The shop bell pinged and she glanced up, formulating the Swedish to say she was sorry but she was about to close. Instead, she laughed. Framed in the doorway was Nico, orange pumpkins beneath each arm.

‘Finishing touches,’ he said, toeing the door closed. One pumpkin he placed carefully in the corner of the window display and the other atop the hat stand, all the time nodding along to her ravings about the astonishing day’s trading. ‘Yeah,’ he said, as if he’d expected nothing less. ‘Are you hungry?’

Hannah paused. Was this a trick question, bearing in mind what had happened the evening before?

‘I know a nice little place,’ he went on.

As he kept his gaze on the pumpkin, Hannah couldn’t gauge whether her reaction was important or not. She glanced out at the now-dark afternoon and thought of the apartment, empty until Albin arrived home late tonight, no doubt to plummet into bed, exhausted. ‘I could eat,’ she answered lightly, beginning her closing-up routine. Nico, evidently feeling at home after a morning working at the shop, replenished a few shelf spaces she hadn’t got to.