It was dark, the only light filtered through a series of small, dirty windows, and it smelled powerfully of damp and mouldy clothes. Heather took out her phone and turned on the torch function, slowly turning around to take in the whole scene. There was a kind of sitting room, seats with padding that could be flipped to turn into beds, storage units and a fold-down table. Further back was a tiny sink, with more cupboards lining the available wall space, and then at the far end, a closed door leading into another room. Here and there she could see more evidence that the place was more than forty years old – orange and brown wallpaper with a familiar ornate flower pattern; stickers on the cupboard doors that demanded the government ‘ban the bomb’, several on the fridge that were of Smurfs, their blue faces mottled with damp. More interestingly, there were signs that the owners had been interested in an alternative lifestyle of sorts. Heather spotted what could only have been a very old bong lying sideways in the sink, and an ancient poster on the wall detailed the months and signs of the zodiac, as well as phases of the moon and other esoteric advice.

Heather moved down through the van, the stench of the place coating the back of her throat. The rain was growing heavier, drumming on the roof in a persistent roar. She opened one of the little cupboards with her free hand and grimaced at the thick spiderwebs inside, but the cupboard above that one was full of small brown glass bottles with white tops. Bringing the phone closer, she tried to read some of the labels, but they were all blurred and warped with age. She did see several needles at the back, old-fashioned-looking bulky things, plastic packets of what looked like condoms and ancient plasters.

‘You’d think kids would have been in here and had all this stuff years ago.’ She paused, thinking better of it. ‘Mind you, maybe kids aren’t that stupid.’