His voice, usually spry and infused with an untold joke, was flat and heavy.
‘No.’ She bit her lip, watching as Hanna cleaned the coffee cup vigorously before immediately drying it and returning it to the cupboard. Bell wasn’t sure any implement in this kitchen had ever been returned to its home without first spending at least four days on the draining board. She watched as Hanna stood, unseeing, at the cabinet for a moment, her shoulders pitched a good two inches above their usual setting, before turning around with possibly the most implausible smile Bell had ever seen – but one of the bravest.
‘Right. Well, we should head off then. Traffic will get sticky if we hit rush hour.’
‘Sure,’ Bell agreed, offering her most reassuring smile in return, although she felt a guilty wave of relief at the prospect of stepping clear of their suffocating gloom. ‘And I’ll take care of everything here. Don’t worry about a single thing –’
Hanna straightened her back. ‘Actually, Max and I have discussed it, and we think it would be best if you came with me.’
Bell blinked at her, confused. ‘. . . Me?’
‘To Uppsala, yes.’
She looked across at Max, who was staring into his coffee cup.
Hanna stood stiffly. ‘It could be too . . . confusing.’ Her voice was as brittle as toffee.
‘Oh, yes,’ Bell murmured. ‘I can see how that . . . But what about –?’
‘Max is going to work from home today. He’ll take the girls to nursery.’
‘. . . And Linus?’
‘He’s coming with us.’ Hanna flinched, as though hating the indecision in her voice. ‘But we don’t know yet if . . . well, whether he should actually come in. That’s why I need you there.’ Her eyes flickered towards Max and away again without resting on him, and Bell understood they were at odds on this.
Bell went still as suddenly the maths presented itself. Linus was nine. The ex had been in a coma for seven years. ‘He’s . . . Linus’s father?’ She looked between them both. Max nodded.
Bell was stunned. In the three years she’d been working here, it had never been mentioned. She supposed she could have worked it out last night if she’d stopped to consider it, but she hadn’t thought to make mathematical calculations. ‘Does he know?’
Hanna whirled back to face her sharply. ‘No. And I’d like it to stay that way until we get up there and I . . . I know what we’re dealing with.’
Bell nodded, looking from Hanna back to Max again. He looked suitably bitten back too.
‘He’s awake, but we don’t yet know how cognizant he will be of what’s happened to him. It could upset him to see Linus so changed – he was little more than a baby when the accident happened.’ Her voice was brittle and hard, shining with jagged edges that could, at any moment, draw blood. She was a mother in defence. ‘On the other hand, he could be absolutely the man he was and the first person he’ll want to see is his son.’ She gave a helpless, exaggerated shrug and stretched her mouth into a grimace, tears in her eyes. ‘I have absolutely no idea what we’re walking into.’
‘Which is why you would be better to play it on the safe side and keep Linus here until you know the score,’ Max said to her back.
‘He’s been in a coma for seven years, Max!’ Hanna snapped, whirling round, and Bell could tell by her tone they had been arguing about this for hours. ‘What if Linus is all he wants? What if he’s distressed by his not being there? It could make things worse for him.’
‘I sincerely doubt he’s going to be that lucid.’
‘Oh, because you’re the expert?’
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