A burly form fills the doorway. The severe expression on the woman’s broad, doughy face appears permanent and projects enough disapproval across the threshold to fill the porch.

Jess smiles at the looming presence. ‘Hi. Morag?’

The night carer that Jess is to relieve is already wearing her coat. ‘Didn’t Sheila tell you to be here at nine?’

‘Sorry. Buses—’

‘Cus it’s gone half-past and we ain’t done the handover yet.’ Footnoting the introduction with a scowl, Morag turns her back on Jess and shuffles inside.

Nervous as much as chastened, Jess steps inside Nerthus House and passes from sunlight to be wholly swallowed within a dim, cluttered hallway, the parquet tiles obstructed by bulging plastic bags.

Before her eyes adjust to the thin sepia haze, she trips at the foot of a once elegant staircase, its path upwards vanishing into the gloom of the first storey, the best part of each step buried under the cascade of cardboard boxes and bags that appear to have tumbled from the darkness above.

Jess rights herself and glances through the doorway of a dining room the size of her flat and sees another dim space crowded to capacity with aged furniture, boxes, cases, heaped clothing, more plastic bags made taut by their contents, bales of yellowing newspaper and magazines sloping into disarray.

A mound of stacked, dust-furred belongings forms the centrepiece of the room, built around a dining table rendered near invisible by the obstructions. The structure resembles the kind of crude playhouse that a child would make indoors were it allowed to use every stick of furniture and possession at hand in its construction. A dark mouth at the front of the pile suggests the door of a burrow, or barrow.

Nerthus House is the home of a shut-in: a dark warren that hasn’t been cleared, let alone tidied. In years. Jess fails to conceal her horror at what she’s seeing in such poor, unhealthy light. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s . . . I mean . . . Not very dementia-friendly?’

‘How Mrs Gardner wanted it. You can’t touch nothing neither. Ain’t you read the notes?’

‘Yeah. Course. But this . . .’

‘All you gotta worry about is the living room, kitchen, her bedroom, bathroom. Rest is off-limits.’

‘Can’t be right. Who’s the appointee? Who’s got power of attorney?’

‘Ask Sheila. Got nothing to do with me.’ Impatient with the interrogation, Morag stamps into the chaotic kitchen at the front of the house, expecting Jess to follow.

As if infected by the disorder of the vicarage, the night-worker hasn’t cleaned up after herself in a while either. Dirty crockery litters counter-tops and fills the sink. An accumulation of grime on each side of the kitchen windows strains the sunlight a dusty brown and adds decades to the already dated cabinets and appliances.