‘Mamma, why are we in a hospital?’ Linus asked her curiously, ogling a tray of filled specimen pots being wheeled past on a trolley.

Hanna stopped outside a door and crouched down so that they were eye to eye. She fiddled with the collar of his jacket and smoothed his hair behind one ear, gazing at him lovingly but seeming to see beyond him somehow too, as though searching for another face within his. ‘Because they serve the best – the very best – ice cream in town. Right here.’

Linus blinked back at her. His expression was complacently blank, but Bell knew he was perplexed as to why anyone – even a nine-year-old boy – would want ice cream at ten o’clock on a cold December morning. ‘Oh. Okay.’

‘Do you want an ice cream?’

He nodded unenthusiastically. ‘Sure.’

The door to their right opened and a nurse came out, smiling over at them perfunctorily as she began walking down the corridor, carrying various utensils on a tray. The door immediately began to swing closed on its hinges, but not before Bell glimpsed a narrow montage of the scene within: several doctors were standing around a bed. There was the usual array of high-tech machinery banking the room, and – rather less usual – a large contemporary abstract print on the wall.

‘But, before we do that –’

Bell turned back to them, hearing the tension flex in Hanna’s voice again. How was she going to do this? How was she going to reintroduce her son to his long-absent father?

Hanna took a big breath. ‘There’s someone I thought you’d like to meet.’

Linus blinked back at her, perfectly still. ‘Who?’

Hanna froze momentarily. ‘. . . An old friend.’

‘Of yours?’

‘Of both of ours. But you were very little the last time you met, so you may not remember.’ Hanna tipped her head fractionally to one side, as though it was a question, a nudge to remember a long-forgotten face.

Linus glanced over towards the wide door, as though sensing the mystery friend was behind it. ‘Did I like her?’

‘Actually, she’s a he. And yes, you did, very much. You were the –’ Her voice faltered suddenly. ‘You were the best of friends.’

‘What’s his name?’ Linus asked.

Hanna blinked, her smile stuck on her face but the fear gathering in her eyes again. Bell could see her courage slipping away like a tide; her body seemed to stiffen in the pose, becoming implacable and defensive. ‘. . . Well, why don’t we go in and you can introduce yourself?’

What?

Bell frowned. Hanna wasn’t going to leave it to Linus to work out the connection on his own, surely? But though her mouth opened in protest – like Max’s – he wasn’t her son, and she had to stay quiet as Hanna rose up, holding his hand. They turned to go in.

The door opened with a swoosh, the faint suckering of the draughtproofing brushes punctuating the quiet, and the group of doctors surrounding the bed turned as one. Their gazes swept over Hanna and settled downwards, on Linus.