‘Not these ones.’ He gives me a cheerful shrug and looks at the field of bare branches to our left again. ‘I suppose the photos may have been a little outdated …’

‘A little outdated?’ I repeat. ‘Judging by the state of the trees, it looks like they were taken centuries ago!’

‘They were taken when the property went on the market, and it’s been on the market for a very long time. No misrepresentation here.’

‘How long?’

‘I say, is that the time? It really is late, isn’t it?’ He feigns a look at his watch, completely ignoring my question.

Why has it been on the market for so long? It didn’t say anything about that on the auction listing. I thought it would be in high demand. I thought there would be loads of bidders and that I was the luckiest person in the world when I won that auction. Who wouldn’t want a Christmas tree farm, after all?

The estate agent taps the clipboard when I make no move to sign anything. ‘You got an absolute bargain here, Miss Griffiths. Twenty-five acres of land, a viable business, an … er … residential property.’ He glances at the building behind me and quickly looks away.

I’ve only been here for three minutes and I can already tell that it has that effect on people. It’s not the kind of building you want to look at for too long.

‘A viable business?’ I say. ‘It’s a Christmas tree farm and there isn’t one living Christmas tree on it.’

‘Yes, but so much land.’ He rubs his hands like he’s trying to show me just how cold he is from waiting and his eyes flick to the clipboard again. ‘And your main area of Christmas trees is down there.’ He points down the lane between the house and the dead trees. ‘Look, I can see some green bits in the distance. I’m sure plenty of them are still living that you can cut and sell.’

Cut them? I glance at the dead trees with peeling bark and broken branches. Most of them look like they’re going to fall over at any moment and save me the trouble. ‘This is a matter for trading standards. You’re selling something that’s nothing like it was advertised.’

‘Everything’s mentioned in the brochure.’ He flicks up a page on the clipboard and taps it with his pen. ‘PDFs were available on our website for all potential buyers to download, and if you’d checked the terms and conditions, you would’ve seen the disclaimer that all photographs are for guidance only.’