‘Huh.’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘I’m going to have a brother!’

‘And how amazing is that?’ she gasped, holding her hand up for a high five.

‘Mamma says I can help choose his name.’

‘Very cool. Although I’m thinking not Blofeld. Or Oddjob.’

He laughed. ‘Pappa chose those for the cats, not me. Besides, I’m nearly eleven now.’

‘Yes, you are,’ she sighed, ruffling his hair again. ‘Can’t you slow down a little? You’re making me feel old.’

He looked at her again, then dropped his head against her once more. ‘I missed you.’

A throb of tears pressed from nowhere. ‘I missed you,’ she said in a thick voice. ‘So much.’

A sudden clap of thunder made them all jump as the sky’s bucket was tipped and the rain began falling at double time, raindrops pelting the ground, the boats, them . . . Linus yelped with delight, scarpering to the relative cover of the awnings of the marina cafe, beside the harbourmaster’s office. But Emil didn’t move and neither did she as they stood staring at each other through the rain for several moments. The sky had become dark, the clouds almost black, and yet the light had taken on an almost glowing quality so that everything felt saturated, more deeply itself.

He walked over at last, breaching the last small gap, hesitation in his eyes. ‘. . . Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘I hope you don’t mind us . . . stopping by like this.’

Stopping by? He had his sister’s way with words. ‘No, of course not.’ She stared into those eyes that had caused her so much trouble. Heartache. ‘It’s a lovely surprise,’ she swallowed, looking away. ‘How’s Max?’

‘Fine now. Pretty much fully recovered.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ she said, relieved, looking straight back at him. The offer to sail south with Mats had been perfectly timed for a clean getaway for her, she couldn’t stay, not for an extra minute, not for another tragedy, but no sooner had Stockholm disappeared from sight than she had berated herself for leaving when he had still been so sick. ‘I felt so bad . . .’ She didn’t finish the sentence, not that she needed to. He knew he was the reason why she’d gone, and he didn’t say anything for a moment as he read the unsaid words in her eyes. ‘. . . It turned out it was his heart, not his head.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘But the fall . . .? He hit his head on the rocks.’

‘Yes, but he fell because of the heart attack. All the stress . . . he had an undiagnosed condition apparently.’

She winced, remembering that awful day and what Emil had put him through. He had the decency to look ashamed about it now. ‘It was just as well the helicopter was there,’ she said neutrally.

‘Yes.’

‘And you, of course. You kept the compressions going. You saved his life.’

‘He would have done the same for me.’