‘And what do we have here?’ she asked them, her shoes in her hands as she kicked through the sand.

They looked up at her with excited gasps. ‘We’re digging for treasure!’

‘Treasure! Oh well, please continue – I could definitely do with some of that,’ she ribbed. ‘Can you find me some gold, please? I really do need to get rich.’

‘Okay. But Mamma lost her ring, so we’ve got to find that for her first!’

Bell felt her own smile fade. Were they joking? Was Hanna? Perhaps it was a ploy to amuse them for several hours. ‘Well . . . keep looking, then. Be Mamma’s heroes. I’ll come back in just a minute. Have you got suncream on?’ She reached down and tapped their little shoulders; they were tacky to the touch. ‘Okay, good girls. I’ll be right back.’

She walked up the sand with a frown, and – dropping her shoes in the basket on the deck – stepped through the fully slid-back glass doors and into the cabin. The coffee cup Hanna had been drinking from was on the counter and she was juicing oranges, her back to the room.

‘Hey!’ Bell said brightly. Too brightly. It sounded forced.

Her employer turned. ‘Bell, hi!’ She gave an equally fake smile, but up close Bell could see that her complexion was pale beneath the tanned, puffy pillows under her eyes.

There was a half-moment of tension as they looked at one another for the first time since they had met here on Thursday night. Bell instinctively understood that now wasn’t the best time for accusations. Her boss, though no longer drunk, though outwardly composed, seemed hardly more held together than she had been then. ‘Good weekend?’

Hanna pushed her immaculate hair back from her face. ‘Great! Oh my God, the weather! I mean . . .’ She shook her head in disbelieving gratitude, but her hand was shaking a little.

‘I know, right?’ Bell agreed, walking in and automatically scooping up the girls’ discarded pyjamas from the floor, eager for the distraction. ‘Did you enjoy Midsommar?’

‘Oh yes. Absolutely.’

‘I didn’t see you there. I thought I’d catch you all dancing. It’s the girls’ favourite bit.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Hanna grabbed the coffee cup again. ‘Well, we decided just to keep it small this year, so we stayed here.’

Bell was shocked. ‘You mean you didn’t go to Sandhamn at all?’

‘No. Max is under the weather, and the girls were just overtired. You know what they’re like – it always takes them a while to sleep well out here. Tilde complains the silence is too loud.’

Bell smiled, but it hadn’t been a problem last year.

‘Did we miss much?’ Hanna asked.

Well, my life changed, Bell didn’t reply. ‘Oh, you know, the usual. Floral crowns, frog dances, too much strawberry cake.’

‘And too much schnapps, I hope?’

‘Of course,’ Bell smiled, folding the clothes and plumping the sofa cushions too, shuffling the weekend papers into a neat pile and getting down on her knees to put the stray Sylvanian Family figurines back into their box. She was aware they were both at pains to be very busy and very jolly. She looked up. Hanna was pouring the fresh juice into a jug. ‘So Max got out here okay?’