She got up and put the bottle in her backpack. ‘Come on, Frikk. Time to inspect the beach.’

The dog was up at once and followed her down to the beach. Among the patches of sand and pebbles, she found another bottle at once. Carefully she walked towards the other side, picking up rubbish on her way.

Jack saw her from the window, wondering what the hell she was doing. He longed for a swim, but didn’t have any shorts to swim in and he wasn’t very keen on swimming in his underwear. Not with her there almost all the time. He hadn’t brought a lot of clothes, only enough to last for a few days. Agnar had a washing machine, but there was no detergent anywhere that he could find. He added that to his list.

He brought a cup of tea out in the garden, together with the papers from the lawyers. They had translated the will and he had read all of it at the office, not wanting to sign anything that would make it impossible to sell the farm or get him in debtors’ prison in Norway. If they had anything like that.

He found a listing of estate agents online and called the first. He explained the situation and ended up explaining it to another two agents, until someone finally said he would come and take a look. They specialised in farms, and the agent gave him a list of things he needed to know.

That was when Jack discovered that the envelope given to him by the lawyers contained papers that looked like lists but that he couldn’t read. Why the hell hadn’t they translated them?

The estate agent made him read aloud the first things on the list, being polite enough not to laugh at his pronunciation, then said it was an inventory.

‘Bloody hell, it’s six pages long,’ Jack said.

‘That only means they have been thorough.’

He made an appointment for the following day and was pleased with himself. Afterwards, he opened Google Translate and started to translate the list, word by word.

‘I have a boat,’ he said out loud. That would probably be in the boathouse. Cool.

‘Hello?’

Jack looked up to find a man about his own age, standing on top of the little stairs that led down into the garden. The man was dressed in a faded pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt with a huge print of a cannabis leaf. He lifted a hand. In the other hand he held a brown paper bag. ‘Are you the Englishman?’

‘I guess I am. Hello.’

The man pointed at the garden. ‘May I talk to you?’

‘Sure.’ Jack stood up and shook his hand. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Jack.’

‘Olav. My partner and I have a smallholding on the other side of the island.’

Jack pointed at the chair. ‘Sit down. How did you know I was here?’

‘Jens told me when I popped into the shop,’ Olav said.