Tove was quiet for a moment, staring at her. Then she leaned over and pulled off her glasses entirely.

‘Tove!’ Bell gasped, reacting just that bit too late. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why are you crying?’ Tove asked, concern softening her. ‘. . . Oh God, babe, what have you done?’

‘We are going to be her pimps.’ Tove looked round at them all seriously. ‘All of us. We are getting this woman a man tonight.’

It was the kind of Tove comment that they might have shouted down when sober, but after a day of drinking in the sun, it sounded almost reasonable. Kris and Marc had returned midway through her story about Emil, and with every new tray of drinks that came back from the bar, she had revealed more about what had passed between them – he was her Midsommar lover, the confrontations she had won, the insults he had, yesterday’s perfection blighted by his accident on the boat, his cruel rejection in the middle of the night, flaunting the seduction of his own wife to her . . .

‘Yes! Do it. Let’s get me a man,’ Bell slurred, as Kris, sitting at the end of her sunbed, gave her a foot rub. At some point they had switched from rum and Coke to mojitos. ‘Lighter,’ Tove had said earnestly, as though it was the Coke they had to watch out for.

‘I can’t . . . I can’t choose properly,’ Bell went on. ‘My man radar is completely broken. Pimp me out. I don’t even care.’

‘This makes me sad,’ Kris sighed. He rarely drank to excess, but when he did, he was usually a sorrowful drunk. ‘You deserve someone who cares about you.’

‘No. That’s the worst thing I could do,’ she protested, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I don’t want love.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Marc said, his skin looking tight after an intense tanning session followed by a competitive volleyball match in the pool. ‘It’s all you want.’

Music was pumping loudly through the speakers; coloured lights were on around the bar area as the sun bumped along the horizon, unable to sink. It was approaching ten and all the families had long since gone home; the sea club was filled to capacity, with partygoers overflowing onto the gangplanks, beers in their hands and the ambient noise levels of laughter and conversation rising rapidly. Every boat in the marina had people on it, deck parties and dinners adding to the carnival atmosphere as others stood on the rocks with binoculars, watching the lead race boats clip past. It was party time again on Sandhamn.

‘Love and good sex very often don’t go hand in hand,’ Tove said, with a gravity that suggested she was passing on divine wisdom. ‘I mean, I get it when people bang on about intimacy adding to it, blah-blah-blah, but sometimes, with a stranger, it’s actually better.’

Bell closed her eyes, remembering again the moment she had leaned across and kissed him –