‘Oh my God,’ Bell murmured, feeling waves of panic beginning to slap against her insides. ‘Does Linus know about this?’

‘Nothing.’ Hanna shook her head wildly. ‘I’ve been trying to keep it from him till I had, I don’t know, control of the situation? After the hospital visit went so badly, and that stupid doctor –’ Her voice snagged on the words, tearing and becoming ragged. ‘I could have had her licence for that.’

Bell swallowed, remembering the immediate fallout only too well. She could see why Hanna hadn’t gone near the subject with her son again.

‘But I’m going to have to tell him now. Tell him everything,’ she sobbed, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘I have no choice. His father wants access and if I don’t grant it, he’s said he’ll take it to court. He’ll have the top family lawyers in Europe, and I won’t stand a chance. It’ll all get into the press.’

‘Surely if his family are that powerful, they’d get some super-injunction or something?’

‘On the contrary, he’ll want it out there. He’s the victim in all of this. Imagine how the narrative will read – the scion to Sweden’s Camelot wakes from a tragic accident and coma to find his wife shacked up with another man. They’ll dig up my life with Max, go through our tax returns, our bins, our social media . . . They’ll paint me as the bitch who didn’t wait.’

Bell winced. It was an intimidating prospect. She closed her eyes, thinking fast, remembering Linus’s terror at the hospital. How would he react to being told that the wild man he’d seen raging and screaming obscenities in that hospital bed was his real father? That that same stranger wanted Linus to go and live with him for half the time? ‘Okay, well then, you need to find a compromise. Clearly, as his father, he does have rights – so Linus needs to be told the truth, and they need to be reintroduced to each other. Properly.’

‘That was my plan too, and I thought he was on side with that. He knew that after the hospital visit went so badly, it was going to need to be handled better the next time he met Linus. He was the one putting off their meeting; he said he wanted to be strong for him when they met properly. He wanted to be the father Linus might remember.’

‘But Linus doesn’t remember him, does he?’

‘No. But he doesn’t believe that.’ Hanna looked straight at her. ‘But then, I don’t know – something’s changed this weekend – Midsommar got him all revved up. He texted me this morning saying he’s been deprived of his son for long enough. He’s lost over seven years already. He wants him with immediate effect.’

‘What?’

Hanna inhaled deeply, swelling herself up with disbelief and despair as she shook her head. ‘He wants Linus to go and stay with him – from tomorrow.’

Bell gasped in horror. ‘Tomorrow? But he can’t do that! No way! The man’s a stranger to him!’