She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and turned to see Mats. ‘Hey,’ he said with a nod. ‘No news?’

‘Not yet. I’m still waiting. They’ve been in there for ages now.’

He came and sat beside her, his weight pushing her cushion upwards slightly.

She looked at him curiously. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were taking the boat back to Stockholm?’

‘I was going to, but the crew are dealing with it. We’ve just gone through a debrief and they’re heading back now. I thought I should stay here and check everything’s okay.’

She sighed. ‘I wish someone would just tell us something, at least. This waiting around is agony.’

‘Yeah.’ He glanced at her. ‘Listen, Bell, I’ll get fired for this, no question. I take full responsibility for what happened. But I just want you to know I’m so sorry.’

She looked at him in confusion. ‘Why will you be fired? It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Of course it was. I’m the skipper. I should never have let him take the helm. And I should have been checking the conditions more closely. I just allowed myself to have a nice afternoon, instead of –’

The bedroom door opened, and she instinctively stood up as Måns stepped through. Bell felt her heart lurch at his expression. Oh God.

‘He would like to see the boy,’ Måns said gravely. ‘I’ll just go and g—’ But Linus was already sprinting barefoot down the corridor. Bell wasn’t the only one who could sleep with one ear open, it seemed.

‘Is he going to be okay?’ he panted.

‘Your father wishes to see you, young man.’ Måns glanced at her, and Mats too. ‘You are welcome to come in.’

Glancing at one another, Bell and Mats filed in after Linus. Emil was lying on a bed and looking almost . . . robotic: tens of wires were attached to his head, a chin strap around his jaw.

Linus froze.

‘It’s okay, Linus,’ Doctor Sorensen said, seeing his fear. ‘I know it looks alarming, but I’ve just been performing an EEG – it measures brain waves, shows us electrical activity in the brain. And I’m very glad to tell you, your father’s is showing as normal.’

‘It is?’ Linus murmured, looking unconvinced.

‘I’m fine,’ Emil said, holding out a hand towards him, though his voice was slightly slurred still. Linus walked towards the bed and obediently took his hand. ‘Don’t worry, I’m okay.’

‘We’ll need to run an MRI in the next few days just to be absolutely sure, but all the signs are that this is a concussion, nothing more sinister than that.’

‘Thank God,’ Bell whispered, her hands to her lips. He looked so vulnerable lying in that bed, rigged up like the national grid. ‘I thought . . . I mean, we all thought . . .’

‘I know. And you did well to raise the alarm and get him back as quickly as you did.’ She nodded her appreciation at Mats. ‘Emil’s been very lucky in this instance.’ She looked back sternly at her patient. ‘Although he had been warned that he couldn’t take any sort of risks – no skiing, water-skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, parachuting, hockey, ice hockey.’