He walked inside, leaving the door open behind him and the suitcase nearby, just in case. Inside he turned on the light. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling. Agnar wasn’t much of an interior decorator, Jack thought.

Along the wall were pegs, loaded with clothes – jackets of all sorts, some older than him, Jack reckoned. On the floor were wellingtons and clogs, slippers and sailing shoes. All worn out, all in a heap. Not a tidy man either, he thought.

The rug on the floor was worn thin and faded. Jack frowned. The house smelled of dust and something else he couldn’t identify. He sincerely hoped they had buried the body and hadn’t just left the poor man in the house. He did not want to meet his biological father like that.

He walked further in. The hallway had three doors, all closed. The first was to a drawing room filled with heavy, dark furniture that reminded him of old black-and-white movies. It looked like no one had been in there for ages. The dust was thick on every surface. And on the floor were stacks of newspapers and magazines.

One of the walls was covered in old photographs. Jack looked at them, one by one. Family photos, some so old they were black and white. His biological family, all of them, and he had no idea who any of them were. It was unsettling to see his own features on some of them. He had always been the odd one out with his blue eyes and blond hair in a family dominated by brown hair and brown eyes. But here, in these photographs, people looked like him. It gave him the creeps, so he backed out of there and decided to explore the rest of the house.

The second door led to the kitchen, a wobbly Formica table by the window and two metal chairs with spindly legs. The kitchen was clean, apart from the dust here too, but there was still cutlery on the counter by the sink.

The fridge was empty. Someone had cleaned out whatever food had been there. He wouldn’t survive on a couple of fish burgers for long. Perhaps he could ask the brown-haired girl, Ninni, where he could buy proper food. And, if he was honest, he wouldn’t mind seeing her again.

He put the food and the bottle of fizzy drink in the fridge and went to see the rest of the house.

The third door led to a combined bedroom/TV room. The TV was old and small, with something he guessed was an aerial protruding from the back of it. Probably black and white as well. He wasn’t optimistic about a Wi-Fi connection out here. More stacks of newspapers and magazines, alongside wobbly stacks of paperback books.

He looked at the sofa bed. ‘I hope he didn’t die on that.’

On one of the old side tables there were more photographs. He picked up one and almost dropped it.