‘Is it? It seems a normal amount to me.’

‘Yeah, I mean if . . . if that’s what you . . .’ He appeared to have missed the point. ‘Don’t you stream?’

He looked at her blankly. ‘. . . Oh yes, right. I keep forgetting. Streaming.’ The way he shook his head wearily, the wry note in his voice . . . she realized this was a new technology for him, one of the changes the world had shifted to whilst he’d been in the coma.

‘Yes, Spotify. Have you heard of it? It’s a Swedish company.’

‘I know. I think we own it.’ He tore off another bite of toast.

She gave an astonished laugh. ‘You think? You don’t even know?’

‘There’s been a lot . . . a lot to catch up on,’ he muttered. ‘Quite a lot happened while I was “away”. Instagram was a niche photo filter app when I left, and now it’s a global publishing phenomenon with content curated to every individual on the planet.’ He shrugged.

‘And are you going to buy that too?’ she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

He didn’t look at her. ‘We’re considering it.’

She laughed. ‘My God, who are you people?’ She shook her head as he looked over. ‘Don’t answer that. I don’t care.’

He frowned. ‘Not the usual response,’ he mumbled.

She leaned against the bookcase, intrigued. ‘So what else changed whilst you were “away”, then?’ She made speech marks in the air.

He thought about it as he chewed. ‘Well, let’s see . . . When I was hit, Obama was president. No one had heard about Islamic State . . . I was using an iPhone 5. Messi had just won the Ballon d’Or for the fourth time . . . Mandela was still alive. Prince was still alive.’ He looked down. ‘A lot of people were still alive when I went under.’

She remembered what he’d said about his father. Him too? ‘I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, coming back and finding the world so changed.’

‘It was just one of the things I had to adapt to, like muscular atrophy,’ he said shortly, clearly not wanting her pity; not wanting any connection at all. He drank the shake in one long gulp, grimacing as he swallowed the last bit, staring at the empty glass like it owed him one.

‘Christer is ready.’ Måns was back at the door again.

‘Right.’ He sighed, handing back the empty plate. ‘Happy?’

‘Delighted, sir.’

He looked back at Bell stiffly, his green eyes still low-simmering with anger and resentment. ‘Well, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’ She felt herself loosen as he left the room, taking all the air with him. She felt jarred and dislocated, rattled not just by his presence but by his absence too, her eyes lingering on the space he had just occupied as though he had warmed the air. She looked away abruptly, feeling a tangled knot of emotions in her stomach. Why him? Why did it have to be him? Would he still have an effect on her if Midsommar’s had never happened? She had hardly fallen at his feet outside Westerbergs, after all.