Nico was hurt but it was definitely time he had things out with his little brother. ‘You think he wouldn’t have accepted the UK job if I’d stayed here with you? I might as well accuse you of keeping Mum from me because you were so ridiculously good at school she wouldn’t move you.’

Mattias reared back in shock. ‘Everything goes right for you,’ he snapped, but with less conviction.

Nico laughed harshly, just about holding on to his temper. ‘Like not making it in ice hockey because I didn’t have a strong enough stomach? Like my wife cheating on me and getting pregnant so my marriage ended and I became a single parent? Like Loren using Maria as a weapon to jerk my chain?’

Mattias hissed furiously, ‘A weapon? You already had a beautiful daughter and then you got a spare child arrive on your doorstep! And now you’re having an extended holiday in the country.’

A slow, deep breath. Nico murmured, ‘I’m attached to Maria now but I was pissed off to start with. She’s a tiny kid with big issues and it was made hard for me to refuse her a home. As it happens, downshifting has been good but it was a surrender to the shit life threw at me, not a chance to take a long holiday. I was frantic. I had to give up a good job and moving to the country made it financially possible.’

Voices rose and fell around the ward, curious glances telling Nico that the furiously muttered argument wasn’t going unnoticed. Beneath the curtain he saw Lars place his shoes on the floor and step into them. Mattias frowned. ‘You’ve moved? It’s not a holiday? But when Loren’s better won’t it be tricky with her living in Islington and you in Cambridgeshire?’

The clatter of a trolley and a nurse saying something bracing to a patient receded in Nico’s ears. Sweat popped on his brow. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘How has this not occurred to me?’ Had he made a terrible mistake uprooting Josie? Term ended tomorrow and he hadn’t heard that she had a place at Middledip Primary. What if she had to go to school in Bettsbrough and be the odd one out again? People were always praising him for his parenting but at that moment he felt as if he shouldn’t be in charge of a garden gnome. ‘Shit,’ he repeated bleakly.

Awkwardly, hesitantly, Mattias patted his shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to bring up something bad. Felicia and I are upset at the moment.’ He swallowed before adding, ‘We can’t have children. We’ve just found out we’re sort of allergic to each other. I suppose I thought Maria had gone your way, as everything does. I’m sorry,’ he added belatedly, his voice as bleak as Nico’s.