Georgie stood back and stared. The dwelling was typical of Norfolk – a sizeable grey stone-clad rectangular box with boarded-up white windows and as many chimneys as bedrooms. The walls were suffocated with vines that reached as high as the red-tiled roof. The facade was filthy – the vines had weaved into the house itself, trespassing through the boards across the windows and out of the cracks in the walls: the impression was of a house in an advanced state of dilapidation. It reminded Georgie of a much grander adaptation of a cheap holiday home her parents had rented for a weekend when she was a child. They had said that the coastal air would be good for her pale complexion but she had spent all the time in her bedroom writing a play. The Penitent Goldfish: A Romantic Comedy. She had never finished it.

They were on high ground. Behind the house, the terrain slipped away and became marshland before finally reaching the murky strip of North Sea a mile or so away. There were fishing boats in the marshes, resting on their side, but Georgie couldn’t tell whether they were wrecks or just waiting for the tide.

‘What now?’ she asked.

Charlie didn’t reply at first. He tried the handle of the front door, which came off in his hand. It looked as though he was considering putting his shoulder to it but then he felt around the void left by the broken door handle. Evidently, he found a latch. The door creaked open.

‘Now we take a tour,’ he said.

Inside, the hallway comprised bare floorboards and peeling, cream wallpaper. Birds had been nesting in the little alcoves above them and the floor was covered in their mess. A mildewed smell hung in the air. Georgie felt her heart rate quicken as she stepped over the threshold into the gloomy entrance, flinching as the floorboards groaned underneath her tread.

They found a lounge area shrouded in darkness. A musty suite covered in sheets was slowly disintegrating in the corner and a dresser sat across the back wall. There were a table and four chairs in the dining room in front of a set of faded curtains. It was eerily quiet: just the occasional gull calling in the distance.

‘It’s like they just got up and walked out,’ Georgie said, opening the dresser drawer and finding a scattering of stained cutlery.

Charlie tried the light switch but there was no power.

‘What are we looking for?’ asked Georgie.

‘I’ve no idea. There must be something. Simeon wanted us to come here.’

‘You think he faked the photograph?’