He approached the boat, squinting as he drew nearer and caught sight of something white on the bench seat. An envelope.

He looked around him in alarm but no sound came from the dark woods, no eyes flashing from the shadows. He stepped down and picked it up. Inside was the receipt, crumpled yet with a precise fold line across the middle. She must have dropped it – and someone else had found it.

Someone who knew his writing.

Because written on the front was a short-three letter word.

His name.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘You’ll be pleased to hear my headache has cleared.’

The conversation stopped and they all turned as one to find Emil standing at the doorway to the terrace. Bell looked up from her spot on the steps with Linus and the twins. They were eating off their laps as a treat, too excitable to sit at the table today, even for ten minutes.

The sky had clouded over in his absence, thick clouds stealing shadows off the ground, an ominous wind ruffling their hair and shirts.

‘Good!’ Hanna said, sounding pleased. Relieved. There was an edge of mania to her brightness. ‘Come and quickly have some birthday lunch, then. I’m afraid we had to start without you. The children were getting restless and it’s trying to rain, so we might need to move indoors shortly.’

He walked over, Nina catching his eye. ‘You do look better,’ she said, regarding him almost suspiciously. ‘I told you you needed to lie down.’

‘You are always right. I should listen to you more.’

His sister frowned, puzzled by his rare obedience as he sat down in the chair beside her. ‘Have I missed much?’ His eyes flickered over the group – Hanna, Max, her . . . Quickly back to Nina again.

Bell felt herself flinch. She was cast out already. Here but not.

‘We were just discussing the European elections,’ Nina said in a sangfroid tone that came with an invisible eye-roll.

‘Ah.’

The conversation resumed, Hanna seeming particularly engaged on the topic – Nina significantly less so – as Måns came over with a plate of poached salmon and cucumber salad and set it down before him. Bell watched Emil eye it without appetite, knowing that even if he could taste it, none of them were here for the food. He picked up his fork but held it limply in one hand and she could see the words building up inside him, like steam in a kettle. His eyes kept darting between Hanna and Max as they all tried to eat, and Bell noticed how the Mogerts didn’t make eye contact or address each other in his presence; there were none of the intimacies or endearments, touching hands or shared laughs that characterized their home life. Was it out of courtesy to Emil? Or because it was all over? Bell couldn’t tell. Everyone was on guard, playing games . . . They might as well have been strangers, and she realized that the last time the three of them would have eaten a meal together, Hanna would have been Emil’s wife and Max their guest. But now, the cards had been shuffled, the deck rearranged . . .