‘I know. I know. That’s what I told him, but he won’t listen to me. He says he may not have rights over me, but he does over his son.’

‘But –’ Bell spluttered, the thoughts rushing too fast to form words. ‘He’s only thinking about himself, not what’s best for Linus.’

‘I know that, you know that – but he doesn’t! He thinks because he can walk and talk again, that that’s enough. I’ve told him it takes more than that to be a father to a child who doesn’t remember him – who, who doesn’t even know about him.’ She began sobbing again. ‘Oh God, how am I going to tell Linus about all of this? What can I say? I panicked that day in the hospital, and I lied.’

Bell looked down, remembering her own anger with Hanna that day. She’d handled it badly, made every mistake, and now – now she was having to it face again, telling her son a truth that couldn’t be denied any longer. Would he forgive her the lies and deliberate duplicity? Was ‘panic’ a justifiable excuse to a little boy who had just been unwittingly reintroduced to his own father? Back then, telling that truth had seemed like an impossibility, but things were very different now. They were worse. Now it wasn’t revealing the identity of his true father that was the main problem, but the reality of Linus having to stay with the stranger who had terrified him.

She stared out into the night, trying to calm her own panicky thoughts. Two swans were swimming past on the inky water, dazzling in their bright relief; but all she could see was the young boy sleeping down the hall, with no idea of the volte-face his life was about to take with the dawn. ‘Okay, look,’ she said slowly. ‘We don’t want to antagonize him. We can all totally understand how . . . desperate he must be to get his life back in some way. He knows he can’t have you, but Linus is still his son and as his father, he has rights. No one’s disputing that – this is just a timing issue. You need to get him to see that you’re not saying you’re denying him access, just that you want to delay the timing of it so that Linus can adapt to the news. It’s for Linus’s sake, not yours. He’s the child and his needs must come first. As a parent, he’ll understand that, surely?’

Hanna shook her head despondently. ‘He’s adamant it’ll be harder for him to rebuild their relationship once we’re back in the city and school’s back. He wants the summer block to give them time to get to know each other, before we start discussing formal living arrangements within a shared custody agreement.’

‘You mean, moving between his place and yours?’

Hanna nodded.

‘Is he in Stockholm?’

Hanna gave a scornful laugh. ‘He’s got places everywhere. But yes, Stockholm is their base.’