I have never been so grateful for a cup of lukewarm coffee in my entire life. It came from a petrol station just outside Gothenburg, handed to me by a woman called Birgitta who took one look at my face and said, in perfect English, "You look like a man who has argued with a satnav." She was not wrong.

The journey to Uddevalla had begun with the sort of overconfidence that only a man who has successfully navigated the M25 can summon. I had hired a car at Landvetter Airport, patted its dashboard like a trusty steed, and promptly driven it in precisely the wrong direction for forty minutes. The satnav, I later discovered, had been set to avoid tolls, which in Sweden apparently means avoiding all roads built after 1952. I found myself on a gravel track between two pine forests, questioning every life choice that had led me to this moment, before Birgitta and her coffee saved me.

By the time I reached the holiday home in Uddevalla, I was two hours late and smelling faintly of petrol station hot dog. The property sat among birch trees with that particular Scandinavian stillness that makes you want to whisper. I did not whisper. I stumbled out of the car, stretched my back with an audible crack, and was immediately observed by an elderly man in a neighbouring garden. He was wearing sandals with socks and holding a pair of secateurs like a weapon.

"You are the English," he announced. It was not a question.

I admitted it. He nodded slowly, as if this explained everything, and introduced himself as Sten. Within minutes I learned that he had lived in this house since 1974, that his wife had passed three winters ago, and that he did not trust my car's parking position. He supervised me reversing six inches to the left with the intensity of an air traffic controller. When I finally cut the engine, he declared it "acceptable" and invited me for a beer that evening. I had been in Uddevalla for eleven minutes.

The property itself was simple and clean, with a kitchen that smelled of pine and a view of the water that made me forget the satnav entirely. I unpacked badly, as is my custom, and walked down to the shore where I met two teenage boys fishing from a small jetty. They spoke to each other in rapid Swedish, then switched to English when they noticed me.

"You are staying in Sten's neighbour house," one said. Again, not a question. News apparently travelled faster than my driving.

They told me, with the solemn authority of sixteen-year-olds, that the mackerel were not biting because the Germans had been there last week and "frightened them." I nodded seriously. They asked if I had met Lillemor yet. I had not. They exchanged looks that suggested I should have.

Lillemor, I discovered that evening, was Sten's sister. She arrived at his garden just as I did, carrying a casserole dish and wearing a purple hat that defied description. She looked me up and down and said, "Too thin. Sten, he is too thin." Sten shrugged as if this were my fault. She fed me fish soup that was roughly the temperature of the sun, and asked pointed questions about Brexit that I answered with the expertise of a man who had spent the afternoon lost in a pine forest.

By the end of that first evening, sitting in Sten's garden as the light stayed stubbornly in the sky, I realised something. I had come to this place expecting scenery and solitude, and had found instead a small community that operated with the gentle persistence of a tide. They did not ask if I wanted company. They simply assumed I needed it, and they were not wrong.

The satnav mishap had cost me two hours. It had also delivered me to Birgitta, to Sten's exacting parking standards, to Lillemor's interrogation and fish soup. I fell asleep that night in a strange bed, in a strange quiet, already wondering what tomorrow's characters would bring.