She turned back to the bookcase again and replaced the volume hurriedly, her fingers tracing across spines for a suitable replacement. Anything. Anything at all that wasn’t angling . . .
‘Is he in bed?’ he asked to her back as she stood on tiptoe to read the titles on the higher shelves.
‘Yes.’
‘It seems early for a ten-year-old.’
‘He was exhausted. It’s been a very draining day for him.’ She desperately hoped he heard the barbs in her words. He should be ashamed of himself for the way he’d acted in the past twenty-four hours to Hanna, Linus. Her.
‘I wanted to go in and say goodnight, but I wasn’t sure if—’
‘No, he’ll be asleep already,’ she said tersely. ‘He could scarcely keep his eyes open.’ Couldn’t he see it was far too soon for fatherly kisses?
‘. . . Right.’
‘Your evening snack, sir.’ She looked over her shoulder as Måns came in with a tray. ‘Ah, Miss Bell, good evening.’
‘Good evening,’ she replied, looking at the contents of the tray: a thick shake, a ramekin of pills and a plate of Toast Skagen.
‘I don’t want it,’ Emil said in a low voice.
Måns lowered his chin as he dropped his voice too, innately understanding that they were trying to keep the conversation from her earshot. ‘You’re seven hundred calories down on your daily tally, owing to your missed lunch.’
‘I said, I don’t want it.’ He was speaking through clenched teeth, his gaze hard on the floor.
‘It’s doctor’s orders, I’m afraid, sir.’ Måns was equally firm within his signature deference.
Bell listened in embarrassment, but also interest. This wasn’t a usual staff–boss relationship. Måns was elderly and slow, but he was somehow also everywhere at the right moment, and implacably right.
With an angry sigh, Emil picked up the toast and began to eat, giving his valet a sarcastic ‘happy now?’ look as he chewed.
Måns nodded gratefully. ‘A drink, Miss Bell?’
‘No, thank you. I’m about to go to bed.’
‘Very good.’ He looked back at Emil. ‘Christer will be ready for you in ten minutes, sir.’
Emil just nodded, swallowing every mouthful with resentment.
Måns left the room as silently as he’d entered, and Bell hovered for a moment.
‘He seems very good.’
‘My father’s valet,’ he muttered. ‘He’s been with us for fifty-three years.’
So Måns had watched Emil grow up, then? He didn’t appear to want to talk about it. She changed the subject, feeling his hostility prickle through the room. ‘That’s a lot of CDs you’ve got there,’ she said, casting a bemused gaze over the multitude of discs set into a stacking tower.
‘Is it? It seems a normal amount to me.’
‘Yeah, I mean if . . . if that’s what you . . .’ He appeared to have missed the point. ‘Don’t you stream?’
He looked at her blankly. ‘. . . Oh yes, right. I keep forgetting. Streaming.’ The way he shook his head wearily, the wry note in his voice . . . she realized this was a new technology for him, one of the changes the world had shifted to whilst he’d been in the coma.
‘Yes, Spotify. Have you heard of it? It’s a Swedish company.’
‘I know. I think we own it.’ He tore off another bite of toast.
She gave an astonished laugh. ‘You think? You don’t even know?’
‘There’s been a lot . . . a lot to catch up on,’ he muttered. ‘Quite a lot happened while I was “away”. Instagram was a niche photo filter app when I left, and now it’s a global publishing phenomenon with content curated to every individual on the planet.’ He shrugged.
‘And are you going to buy that too?’ she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
He didn’t look at her. ‘We’re considering it.’
She laughed. ‘My God, who are you people?’ She shook her head as he looked over. ‘Don’t answer that. I don’t care.’
He frowned. ‘Not the usual response,’ he mumbled.
She leaned against the bookcase, intrigued. ‘So what else changed whilst you were “away”, then?’ She made speech marks in the air.
He thought about it as he chewed. ‘Well, let’s see . . . When I was hit, Obama was president. No one had heard about Islamic State . . . I was using an iPhone 5. Messi had just won the Ballon d’Or for the fourth time . . . Mandela was still alive. Prince was still alive.’ He looked down. ‘A lot of people were still alive when I went under.’
She remembered what he’d said about his father. Him too? ‘I can’t imagine what it’s been like