‘I know you’re up for doing some work, but it’s too much,’ Rohan said as we contemplated the master bedroom. Busy floral wallpaper coated the walls from floor to ceiling and even suffocated the back of the door, closing up the room and constricting my lungs with the feeling that I might never find my way out. The agent had tugged at the heavy damask curtains, releasing a scattering of dead flies and a cloud of dust that made us all cough, and pointed out the original marble fireplace, the high ceilings, the sash windows and the stained-glass inlays that cast colours across the thinning green carpet. The double mattress, stripped of its linen, sagged.

Outside, the back garden was more overgrown than shady. It was dominated by a huge oak tree, the branches of which reached toward the house like greedy arms. At the back fence, I could just about make out the faded pink paintwork of a children’s Wendy House, its roof now camouflaged with mildew. Its edges were indistinct, as if it were dissolving back into ancient oak and becoming a part of the garden’s wilderness. With my forehead pressed to the window, I cut back the plants in my mind’s eye. I trimmed the grass and sat on the wooden bench by the roses – in my head, I pictured a little girl in red shoes and a flowery dress make her way across the lawn to whisper secrets to her dollies at a Wendy House tea party.

‘It smells like someone died in here,’ Rohan said, looking dubiously at the bed’s stained mattress.

I turned to face the room with a sigh then wandered back onto a landing fringed with ornate wooden railings and across into the big family bathroom. It was rife with peeling, yellowed wallpaper and featured a stand-alone bath so filthy I had to trail a finger through the dirt to see it was made of porcelain.

The second bedroom was smaller and darker, much of the light stolen by the oak tree. It was cool and I shivered as I entered. The room still contained the single bed and dresser of a girl – presumably the one for whom the Wendy House was built. It had a grey carpet, and lilac-and-white wallpaper that swirled and twirled, its pattern marked with the greasy smudges of old Blu Tack. The room had its own fireplace, functional rather than fancy, the ashes of a solid object still lodged in the grate. I bent down to look closer: a book of some sort; a diary maybe, perhaps 90 per cent destroyed by fire, but the swirl of handwriting was still visible on the fragment of a lined page that faced me. I reached out to touch the paper and it disintegrated. I jumped back up, goosebumps prickling my flesh.