Hanna relaxed again. ‘Oh?’ She unbuttoned her trousers and stepped out of them, walking across the room as she arranged them on a hanger and replaced them in the wardrobe. She put on her jeans instead.

Bell didn’t blink an eye; she had grown accustomed to the Swedes’ lack of inhibitions. Hanna and Max routinely moved around – certainly upstairs – in their underwear, and they all swam nude in the sea at the summer house (although Bell usually excused herself on the pretext of urgently needing to buy milk. Or bread. Or hazelnuts).

‘Yes, a – uh – Dr Sorensen called for you,’ Bell said quietly, seeing how Hanna fell still at the mention of the name.

‘Oh?’ But her voice was hesitant now. ‘What did she want?’

She? She knew Dr Sorensen was a woman? So Hanna did know her, then. It wasn’t a coincidence or a mistake. This might be . . . this might be true?

Bell opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. How could she repeat the message, say those words, when they made no sense?

Hanna turned back to face her, but the depleted energy she had radiated only a few seconds ago had suddenly switched to a quivering intensity. Her mouth was stretched thin, the sinews in her neck pronounced, but her eyes were fiercely focused. ‘Bell? What did Dr Sorensen want?’

‘She wanted you to know . . .’ But still the words failed her. She couldn’t give them a shape. It was preposterous. Nonsensical.

Suddenly Hanna was before her. She was tall, at least four inches taller than Bell, and her hands were on Bell’s arms, as though she was the one in need of consolation. ‘Tell me. What did she want me to know?’

Bell looked up at her, sensing change, some sort of seismic shift. ‘Your husband has woken up.’

Chapter Three

Kris looked up from his favoured spot at the stove, his lobster-print apron looking anachronistic against the faded and torn Metallica t-shirt. The smell of chorizo, prawns and peppers filled the small flat. ‘Hey! You’re late!’

Bell, positioning the bike on its rack behind the front door, kicked off her trainers, pulled her beanie from her head and let her hand fall against her thigh. ‘Yeah,’ she sighed, lethargically shrugging off her coat and limping in. ‘Oh – hi.’

Tove waved from her sprawled position on the sofa, blowing smoke from her roll-up towards the ceiling. ‘Hi, babe. I’m not here. You haven’t seen me.’

That was easier said than done. At five foot eleven, with legs up to Bell’s armpits, Tove wasn’t particularly easy to hide. But Bell nodded, knowing the drill; her lanky, irreverent friend, who worked in the Star Bar two floors below the flat, often escaped up here on her breaks. Invariably, they slid well past the official twenty minutes.

Kris frowned at Bell as she dragged herself into the room. ‘You look like shit,’ he said fondly. ‘Tough day?’ He finished slicing a Romano pepper and scraped it off the board into the pan. It instantly sizzled and hissed, and he shook the pan several times, biceps flexing under the harsh under-cupboard lights.