They settled quickly into the new routine, the first few days a blur of sandwich-making, sandcastle-building, rock-pool-exploring activity. They went out on the little boat with picnics wrapped and knotted up in a blue-and-white checked tablecloth, the children awkward in their bulky yellow buoyancy vests, their faces already turning berry-brown, their hair salty and increasingly tangled. They explored the nearby bays and coves of the neighbouring islands on the lagoon side, where the water was warmest and most protected. But although their world here was remote and small, it was not without incident – already there had been one allergy-inducing spider bite (Elise), a bleeding toe from standing on a piece of glass (also Elise) and a bright strip of sunburned back (Tilde) which had been missed in the regular suncream-slathering sessions.
With every dawn, the sun seemed to beat with growing intensity, each day hotter than the last so that bobbing, gliding and diving in the water was the only relief to be had. And when their skin was wrinkled, they took refuge in the speckled shade of the pines, idly pulling apart needles as Bell read to the girls after lunch and lulled them into drowsy naps on the blanket, giving her, Hanna and Linus – who seemed to be grouped with the adults this year – a few precious hours of peace.
They couldn’t sleep hard enough, it seemed, their little bodies woken too early and nudged too late by the almost endless sunlight, and she kept forgetting to ask Hanna to ask Max to bring the blackout linings from home when he came out this weekend.
The long days left her worn out too, and after the initial challenge of sudden digital detox, she was just about adjusting to not having wifi. She had to catch the news on her old radio and actual newspapers, and depend on WhatsApps– mobile coverage permitting, depending on the weather systems – from Kris and Tove to keep her in the loop with the Stockholm scene. Not to mention fixing up a social life.
Tonight was her date with Per, the crewman from the ferry. He had invited her for a drink at the pub, having docked that afternoon and swapped a shift so that he could stay over on Sandhamn tonight. Bell stared at her reflection in the mirror, somewhat surprised by what she saw; there’d scarcely been a moment to stop all week, much less consider what she looked like. Most mornings she took it as a win if she had time to drag a brush through her hair and find a dry bikini. But she had caught the sun, too, even in just four days – her hazel eyes looked vivid against her tanned skin, and there were a few freckles smattered across the bridge of her nose.
She brushed her hair to a shine, pulling it up into a high ponytail and finishing it with a thin black velvet ribbon. That and a pair of earrings were her only nod to accessorizing, as she buttoned up her denim shorts and tugged on the red-and-white striped tank. She gave herself one last appraising look in the mirror – sporty, fresh, natural, not too try-hard. It wasn’t like she particularly fancied Per, but she could probably be persuaded into it for a while. More than anything it would just be nice to talk to another adult about something other than sandwich fillings and suncream.
Sliding on her Birkenstocks, she cast about for her phone. It was ten to eight and it would take roughly ten minutes to putter over to Sandhamn and dock in the marina, then a few minutes’ walk across the harbour to the pub on the far side.
Where was it?
She checked on the bed again, inside the kitchen cupboard, ran out to check in the loo, the Adirondack chair, the windowsill, the rock where she sometimes just about caught a phone signal, the bed again – before remembering she’d left it on the worktop in the main cabin kitchen.
She had to go past the main house anyway to get the boat; Hanna had told her she had free use of it. Panic over, she shut the cabin door behind her and began walking through the trees back towards the little beach. The path was narrow, with moss springing up on both sides, patches of rock peeking through like bare skin beneath the worn grass and scattered pine needles.
Hanna wasn’t on the deck as she stepped into the clearing, although a half-empty wine bottle and glass stood on the small table.
‘Hanna, it’s just me,’ she stage-whispered as she opened the door and walked into the open-plan space. There was no one on the sofas either, and the TV was off, but she could see her phone on the worktop, beside the fruit bowl. ‘I forgot my phone.’
She picked it up and waited a moment, expecting the sound of her boss’s barefooted steps on the wooden floor. With everything on one level in the cabin, noise travelled easily.
‘Hanna?’
Still nothing. Was she in the bathroom?
With a shrug, she turned and left, closing the door softly behind her. She walked down to the beach, checking her phone for missed messages and calls. Just one from her hairdresser, putting back an appointment she had forgotten even booking. At the water’s edge, she slid off her shoes and held them in one hand, beginning to wade into the water, before stopping suddenly.
What?
She frowned, blinking once, twice, at the distant horizon. There was no boat blotting its perfect curve. She kept staring at it, trying to comprehend the situation. The boat wasn’t there. It clearly wasn’t there. But no one apart from her and Hanna had a set of keys.
With a gasp, she turned back to the cabin. The never-quite-setting sun reflected dazzlingly on the sliding glass doors, like the pink-tinted lenses of Ray-Ban aviators, mirroring the world back to itself.
Running, feeling the sand clump between her wet toes, she dashed up the beach and up the steps onto the deck. She was supposed to dunk her feet in the yellow water bucket by the door before she went in – it was a cardinal rule in the Mogerts’ summer house – but she ran straight through, oblivious to the sandy footprints marking a path behind her. She looked into the bathroom as she went past. Empty.
Hanna and Max’s bedroom.
Empty.
Heart clattering, she peered in to the children’s bedrooms too – but they were all sleeping soundly, skinny limbs thrown atop the covers in the heat.
Bell stood breathless in the hall, trying to make sense of what was going on, trying to find another explanation for what the facts were showing her. But there was only one truth. The boat was gone. Hanna was gone. And her children had been left alone in this cabin on an island.
Had there been an emergency? There must have been. And yet, if so, why hadn’t she told Bell and asked her to come back down here? To just . . . leave them here? Alone and vulnerable whilst they slept?
Bell felt an uneasy sensation swirling in the pit of her stomach, a small monster settling into a restless sleep. She walked back out onto the deck, scanning the dusky millpond water for signs of a small boat puttering back into view; but there was only that big, blushing, empty sky and the vast, unbroken stretch of sea.
She couldn’t leave, clearly. She couldn’t get there, for one thing, but to leave the children alone . . . With a sigh of disbelief, she sank into the chair and texted the bad news to Per, staring at the half-drunk wine bottle and the glass with a smear of lipstick on the rim. She could already imagine her friends’ responses when they heard she’d cancelled on another date.
She waited in the growing dusk, with just one question going over and over in her mind.
What the hell was going on?
It was gone two when she heard the sound of the motor, raising her head from the sofa and looking out through the giant window. There was still light out there, but darkness hovered like a gauze veil, a suggestion rather than fact, and Hanna was an inky silhouette as she jumped into the thigh-deep silvery water and began to wade to shore. There was something exaggerated in her movements, her arms held that bit too extravagantly above her head, her legs kicking with an excitable flourish through the water.
Bell sat up, pushing her hair back as she tried to bite back her anger. There would be a good reason for this. Hanna wouldn’t have left her children – her babies – unattended here without a damned good reason.
The door slid open, almost silent on its tracks.
‘Bell!’
Bell saw how Hanna’s legs buckled at the knee in sudden fright at the sight of her sitting on the sofa, a blanket over her legs. But there was no relief in her voice. No ‘thank God you came’.
‘What are you doing here?’
Bell took a moment to respond. How could she reply without betraying the accusation in her voice? ‘I left my phone on the counter,’ she said steadily, quietly, not wanting to waken the children. Hanna’s voice, by contrast, was slightly too loud. Too . . . appeasing. She was drunk. ‘I came back to get it before I went out, and saw that . . . no one was here.’
She gave Hanna a moment to reply, but her boss merely nodded, open-mouthed, looking around the cabin as though somewhat surprised to find herself there. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘So I thought I should stay here. With the children.’ She waited again, giving Hanna another chance to explain, to make this all okay. ‘. . . I assumed something must have happened.’
Hanna looked back at her in apparent confusion, her eyes catching on Bell’s stained lipgloss, her hoop earrings (a complete no-no during the day, with the girls around). Suddenly, she slapped her forehead with a hand. ‘Oh my God, you were supposed to use the boat tonight!’ she cried.
Bell glanced in alarm towards the children’s bedrooms. Instinctively, she pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Sssh. The children are asleep.’
Hanna copied her, the movement clownish. ‘Ooops. Sorry.’ As though it was Bell’s kids she was disturbing, not her own. ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I forgot that. It completely slipped my mind.’
‘It doesn’t matter about the boat, Hanna,’ she said. Exactly how much had she had to drink? ‘But I was worried about the kids.’
Hanna tipped her head to the side, and the movement seemed to be enough to unbalance her, as she lurched several paces to the side, having to grab at the wall. ‘Aww, you are so sweet. Always worrying about us. Looking after us so well.’ She sighed dramatically and hiccuped. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you. I really don’t. I’m always saying it to Max. You are our angel. Heaven sent.’
‘Hanna—’
‘You must let me make it up to you.’
‘Hanna, I don’t care about the boat. I was worried that the children had been le—’
‘I insist. Tomorrow you are to have the day off. The whole day!’
Bell glanced down the corridor again, certain Linus would wake up. His mother was paralytically drunk, holding on to the wall and waving her arms about.
‘Sleep late. Go to Sandhamn. Go back to Stockholm, if you like. Have a three-day weekend, on me.’
Bell stared at her. ‘Hanna, it’s Midsommar this weekend. I was going to help you with the girls’ floral crowns tomorrow and get things ready before I went.’
‘I can do that!’ Hanna exclaimed, batting a hand dramatically.
‘Ssh!’ Bell pressed a finger to her lips again, beseeching her for a little consideration for the children.
Hanna followed suit again. ‘Oh yes, I keep forgetting,’ she giggled, whispering again. ‘Well, now, you get off to bed and don’t worry about a thing here. We’re fine. Off you go now, and we’ll see you on Monday. You work too hard. Go have some fun. Go,’ she shooed, flapping her hands.
Reluctantly, and only because she didn’t want the children to be disturbed, Bell turned and walked slowly towards the door. She glanced back to see Hanna lurching down the corridor, arms outstretched as she bounced off the walls, leaving grubby handprints on the pristine white paint. She stumbled into the bedroom, closing the door with a slam. Bell winced and waited for a small tousle-haired head to appear at one of the other doors; but after a few minutes, when no one stirred, she let herself relax. They must be in the dead of sleep.
Lucky for them.
Lucky for Hanna.