Max sighed, looking away with a shake of his head.
Hanna looked back at her. ‘I need to have options, Bell. I need to go in first and assess how he is. If he’s calm and lucid, Linus can come in. If he’s confused or distressed or . . . not right, he doesn’t.’
Bell nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘And if he is alert and okay, what are you going to say to Linus?’ Max asked, his voice sounding choked. ‘Are you honestly going to break it to him, in the doorway of that hospital room, that the man he’s about to meet is his real father?’ He stared at his wife with shining eyes. ‘How do you think he’s going to react to that? I mean, the shock – Jesus, the poor child! He needs time to process the facts before he’s presented with the reality! We always said we would tell him together, when he was old enough – the two of us, together –’
‘But we don’t have that luxury now! He’s woken up, and there’s no time left. He’s been nearer to being dead than alive, and we have to put his needs before ours – and before even Linus’s. It’s the very least he deserves.’
Max exhaled forcefully, his body rigid with anger and tension as Hanna suddenly dropped her head into her hands.
‘God, this is an impossible situation,’ Bell said quietly, walking over to her quickly and squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. It was a strange reversal of roles. Though her boss was only six years her senior, their very different lifestyles and choices often left Bell feeling almost adolescent in her company.
Hanna lifted her head again. ‘I just need options, Max, until I know what’s the best thing to do.’
‘Well, you’re his mother,’ Max retorted snippily. ‘So I don’t get a final say in it. I’m not even his adoptive father. When it comes down to it, I have no legal rights.’
‘This isn’t about legalities.’
‘Not yet it isn’t,’ Max said bleakly.
Hanna’s mouth parted. Bell’s, too. What exactly was ahead of them?
‘Uh, look, I’ll keep Linus occupied until you’ve seen him and you know what’s best to do,’ Bell murmured. Hanna nodded, but Bell could feel the tension in her arms, and her skin was icy. ‘Just so I’m up to speed – what exactly has he been told about today? I’m assuming he’ll be suspicious as to the early start and not going in to school?’
‘I’ve told him we’re going on a road trip and having some special time together, just the three of us.’
‘. . . Okay.’ It wasn’t the most convincing cover story Bell had ever heard. She glanced at Max again. His arm was outstretched on the table, his body slumped against the chair. He looked . . . lost. Defeated, almost.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs made them all stiffen, Hanna withdrawing quickly and running her hands over her face and through her hair, as though prepping herself for another day at the office.
‘Liney, are you ready?’ she asked, turning her back to him but making an effort to sound distracted and busy as he trudged into the kitchen. His backpack was bulging, and his shoes were already on.
‘Yes.’ His face was still kissed with sleep, his eyes heavy. Bell knew he’d fall straight back asleep in the car.
‘Now, seeing as this is a special occasion today, do you want to bring the iPad?’
The boy frowned, roused from his early-morning stupor by the question. ‘Huh? You never let me take the iPad from the house.’
‘But today . . .’ Hanna’s voice fractured and she quickly forced another grim smile. ‘Today is our special day. A one-off. Go get it.’
‘I can bring it?’
‘That’s what I said, didn’t I? But hurry. We’re just about to leave.’
Linus gave a small squeal of delight.
‘Agh!’ Hanna said, hushing him before he got too excited. ‘And go up the stairs quietly, please. Your sisters are sleeping.’
‘Yesss!’ Linus stage-whispered, punching the air, his gaze sliding over to Bell. ‘Did you hear, Bell? We’re going on an adventure, just the three of us.’
‘I did!’ Bell gasped happily, falling into her role and pressing a hand over her heart. ‘How lucky are we?’
‘It’s going to be the best day ever!’ he said, dropping his rucksack to the floor and running from the room and back up the stairs like a stampeding wildebeest.
Bell looked back at Hanna to find her and Max staring across the room at one another in agonized silence.
No, today definitely wasn’t going to be that.
Chapter Four
They stole away from the city, leaving Stockholm’s waterways and copper roofs at their backs as they headed north on the E4, passing beneath vast green signs and a rosy sky until endless forests of pines lined the route. Linus remained resolutely awake, the novelty of his tablet on his lap keeping him engaged. Conversation between Bell and Hanna was muted.
Bell had so many questions she wanted to ask, but it was impossible with Linus sitting in the back seat. Every so often she glanced across at her boss, seeing how Hanna’s knuckles blanched white on the steering wheel, her gaze set dead ahead with laser-beam focus, even though traffic was light. What must it be like to be driving towards a husband she hadn’t had a conversation with in seven years – a father whose son had almost grown up without him? What would their first words be? Hello? How are you? What’s the weather like out there? You grew your hair? You cut your hair? She frowned. Would the physical changes in Hanna alert him to the time he had lost? Did he know that almost a decade of his life had slipped past?
So many questions, and not one answer. It wasn’t her business and yet, she had been pulled into this story too.
They arrived in Uppsala before eight, Hanna pulling into a car park with an easy familiarity that suggested she knew it well. Bell looked around with mild curiosity as she stepped out of the car. Kris had told her it was Sweden’s fourth city, but there was nonetheless a quaint, small-town feel to the place, the skyline pierced by the dramatic gothic towers of a cathedral to the west. There were immediate similarities to Stockholm: the coloured buildings in red and yellow, every wall punctuated by multitudes of windows to maximize the northern light, barrelled mansard roofs. But unlike the capital’s wide, pale roads, here the streets were cobbled and shaded with a froth of trees; and the city was bisected not by the sea but a rushing river with cafes strung along its banks.
Linus, sensing food, allowed Bell to take his hand, and the two of them followed after Hanna’s brisk steps as she led them directly to a small cafe with a glass room at the back that overlooked the water. They ordered breakfast quickly, Linus eager to pull out his iPad again as soon as they were seated. Ordinarily Bell would have insisted he put it away at the table, but only because Hanna would have insisted on it first – and she wasn’t doing that today. Special rules applied here; seemingly everyone was being cut some slack.
Hanna gazed through the window, watching a couple of ducks swimming beside the riverbank. Two young women jogged past with earbuds in, ponytails swinging.
‘It seems like you know this place well,’ Bell posited, not wanting to intrude on Hanna’s thoughts, but not wanting either to alert Linus to the strangeness of how their day was proceeding. Several times already she had caught him glancing up at his mother with a quizzical look, and he couldn’t have failed to notice their silence on the journey.