Jack smiled. ‘Do you cook?’

‘Enough to keep Frikk and myself alive, but it’s not something I do for the love of it. To be honest, I can live perfectly fine on frozen pizza and waffles.’

Jack frowned. ‘Now that sounds like a nightmare.’

‘That’s because you haven’t tasted my waffles,’ Ninni said.

He looked like he was waiting for an invitation, but one that wasn’t coming. Not on your life, mate, she thought.

‘What’s in the bag?’ she said instead.

He put the bag on the table. ‘Alma said you’re a translator.’

Ninni nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t translate fiction, only legal papers, contracts and such: all those things you need notarised. Is that what you need?’

‘It’s not that complicated, I’m afraid. The lawyers who translated Agnar’s will left out the inventory list. I called them, but they tell me it would be a full week before I get it back. I’ve tried to do it myself with Google Translate, but perhaps there’s more I should know about. I don’t want to discover I have more goats,’ he said.

‘Sheep,’ Ninni said and held out her hand.

‘I’m not convinced about that yet,’ Jack said and handed her the bag.

She hid a smile. ‘Did you find the smokehouse?’

‘I found a lot more than that. I found the meat hanging in the stabbur. It melted in my mouth.’

‘I told you so.’ Ninni opened the bag and pulled out the contents: a thin file and some old notebooks. She started with the file.

‘Hmm,’ she said.

‘What? More goats?’ Jack looked suspicious.

Ninni looked at him. ‘No, but there’s a donkey and a couple of cows, and quite a few turkeys.’

Jack frowned. ‘Turkeys?’

‘Yes, and a llama.’

He laughed. ‘I hope you are a better translator than that.’

‘I’m an excellent translator. I’ve been doing it for seven years.’ Ninni read through the list and handed it back to him. ‘Don’t worry. There’s no more livestock or anything like that. But it mentions that the stabbur is a joint venture with Tobben, Britt and Olav.’

‘I know. They will go through everything with me soon,’ he said.

Ninni looked at him. ‘If you already know what’s in here, why come to me? Do you think the lawyers have cheated you or that Tobben and the others have?’

‘No, not at all. They couldn’t be nicer. In the last few days I have received visitors and gifts worthy of a king. There’s eggs and beer, all sorts of jam and even some dried fish – herring, I think.’

He said it with such delight that Ninni couldn’t help but be charmed. ‘I heard Jens sold you a package of Old Cheese. He’s had great fun with that.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I actually like it.’

‘Seriously? It’s hideous and smelly,’ Ninni said and opened the old notebook.

‘It has a distinct flavour, yes, but I like Stinking Bishop, so the joke is on me.’

‘Stinking Bishop? What’s that?’

‘The smelliest cheese in the UK. It’s fantastic,’ Jack said with a wide grin.