Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family’s housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband’s faltering business. She left in a hurry one night while Samuel was sleeping and did not say goodbye.
Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. He misses her dearly and maps her journey in an atlas he finds in her study. Samuel’s life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. Only she and Samuel know how brutally she enforces order.
As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered—by Ruth.
Artful, haunting and hurtling toward a psychological showdown, The Boy at the Keyhole is an incandescent debut about the precarious dance between truth and perception, and the shocking acts that occur behind closed doors.
Praise for The Boy at the Keyhole
“The Boy at the Keyhole is sinister and tight, amusing and intense, an emotional story of a sweet boy hurting from his mother’s absence and unhinged by the possibility of her murder. A fun and wicked read that is impossible to put down!”
—Matthew Sullivan, author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
“At the heart of this gripping, perfectly paced story is a lonely nine-year-old boy consigned to the often brutal control of his absent mother’s housekeeper. A relentless, claustrophobic tale about the constancy and opacity of love, where the truth must be terrible in order to be believed.”
—Charles Lambert, author of The Children’s Home
“A fiendishly efficient, gorgeously written, nasty little thrill ride of a psychological thriller. I couldn’t put it down, and it’s entirely possible that I’ll never sleep again. A true tour-de-force of a debut novel.”
—Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham and Jane Steele
“Equal parts pastoral and piqued, The Boy at the Keyhole is a story that rises above its own devices and transcends the sum of its parts. The characters sink through the cracks of your mind, straight to your soul. And the questions herein will burn you to bits. You’ll talk about this book with everyone you meet. It’s that exciting.”
—Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box
THE BOY AT THE KEYHOLE
A Novel
STEPHEN GILES
Stephen Giles is the author behind the Ivy Pocket children’s series, which has been translated into twenty-five languages. He lives in Australia. The Boy at the Keyhole is his first work for adults.
For Mary Giles,
my mother
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgments
1
The morning light was disappointing, spilling faintly across the stone floor and making very little of the shattered bowl or its contents. It was hard to know for certain, not without checking, but there were probably clouds overhead, because now and then a great beam of sunlight would push through the mullioned windows, spotlighting the kitchen table and the boy sitting on it. Samuel looked into these brief flares of honeycombed light with a kind of spellbound curiosity—the dust particles churned around the bleeding wound on his leg like a swarm of bees. It was confusing more than anything. She hated dust; everybody knew that. Yet Samuel was forced to consider the possibility that Ruth’s kitchen wasn’t really as spotless as she claimed.
“Didn’t I ask you to stop running about?”
Samuel nodded. Ruth had asked that question three times already and each time he had answered it the same way. She was like that sometimes, asking the same thing over and again. Did she really suppose his answer might change from one moment to the next? That he’d suddenly say that she hadn’t asked him to stop running about? He wasn’t stupid.
“Kitchens aren’t for playing in.” Ruth was crouching on the floor picking up the pieces of ceramic bowl. She placed them on the table beside Samuel, where they rocked gently back and forth. “This was my best bowl, Samuel, and it’s not as if I can go into the village and buy another.” She looked up at him. “Who do you suppose I was making the cake for?” Before Samuel could answer, Ruth said, “Not me, that’s for certain.”
The boy was silent.
“I should think this house has enough rooms to make a racket in without bringing it in here. Truly, Samuel, you make so much noise I sometimes wonder if you’re possessed.”
“What’s possessed mean?” said Samuel.
“It means a boy who doesn’t have the good sense to stop.”
Once she was done picking up the shattered bowl, Ruth grabbed a bucket and a rag and got to work on the chocolate cake mix that had settled on the floor like a lava flow.
Samuel’s attention returned to the cut on his shin. A small amount of blood oozed from the wound and the boy scooped it up with his finger. Samuel never failed to be disappointed by the touch of blood—it held so much promise when it was seeping from a wound, red and thick and ghoulish, but then you touched it and it seemed to fade to nothing, leaving barely a stain on your fingertips.
“It looks worse than it is.” That was another thing Ruth had repeated several times that morning. “It’s not at all deep. Heal in no time.” She sniffed. “Does it hurt?”
Samuel shook his head. It did hurt but he knew not to say so.
“Good,” Ruth said. “I’ll clean it up and then you can get out from under my feet.”
She went into the larder and came out with a small bottle and a fresh cotton swab. By then the restless clouds had shifted again, bleeding the light from the room and throwing smoky shadows across Ruth’s face. Samuel once heard his mother describe Ruth as a “handsome woman,” but to him she just looked bothered.
“You must try to be good, Samuel.” Ruth unscrewed the glass bottle and poured a small amount onto the swab. “Running this house by myself and looking after you is hard enough without...” She dabbed the wound on Samuel’s leg and the boy did his best not to wince. “I just wanted you to sit down and eat your breakfast. Didn’t I ask you to stop running about? Didn’t I warn you that I was in no mood for nonsense?”
Samuel nodded.
“Well,” said Ruth, wiping the last traces of blood away, “what’s done is done. Let’s say no more about it.” Her voice was always softest then, her head bent low to meet Samuel’s, her eyes seeking his out. She pushed the hair from his brow. “Friends?”
Samuel nodded. “When is Mother coming home?”
Ruth sighed. “Please don’t start that, Samuel. Not today.”
“Why hasn’t she—?”
The back door op
ened and Olive stepped in, taking off her coat and apologizing to Ruth for being late. “The bus didn’t turn up and I had to walk up from the village.”
“I see.” Ruth slipped the bottle of antiseptic into her pocket and patted her brown hair. “I tried to call you this morning, Olive, but the phone just rang out.”
Olive came in every Saturday to help with the cleaning. Back before Samuel had started school, the house had two maids, a cook and a full-time gardener. Now it was just Ruth with Olive once a week and William doing what he could with the garden on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
“I walked Ma to the market,” said Olive, hanging up her coat. “We were meant to go yesterday but Ma was feeling ill so—” Olive stopped suddenly. “What happened to your leg, Master Samuel?”
Olive wasn’t supposed to call the boy that. His mother didn’t allow fancy titles. She was American and had all sorts of ideas about that sort of thing. Samuel knew the story by heart—from the moment his mother had married his father and moved from New York, she was determined that her English home would not suffer under the soul-crushing burden of formality. Samuel had no idea what that meant but he was certain it had something to do with his mother being daring.
“I hit the table,” said Samuel.
“How did you manage that?” said Olive.
The hair fell across Samuel’s eyes. “I fell.”
“He was running around with one of his planes and tripped over the chair,” said Ruth, helping Samuel off the table. “It’s not a bad cut—he’ll be good as new in no time.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Olive said this without taking her eyes off Samuel. “You’re okay, then?”
“Why shouldn’t he be? It’s just a cut.” Ruth cleared her throat. “Olive, as I was trying to say—the reason I telephoned this morning was to tell you that I won’t be needing you today. I’m very sorry you’ve had to come all of this way.”
“Oh?” said Olive.
“The thing is, I doubt very much I’ll need your services again,” said Ruth.
Samuel watched the way Olive’s eyes darted about, landing on him or the floor or Ruth but never settling for more than a second before flying off to the next thing.
“You don’t want me to come anymore?” said Olive.
“If I had my way I would have you here all week,” Ruth said. “But as you know, that is impossible at the present time...with things as they are.”
“I’d be glad to stay on and we can settle up when Mrs. Clay returns?”
“I don’t know when that will be, Olive.”
“It’ll be soon,” Samuel said. “It’ll be soon, won’t it, Ruth?”
“Yes, I hope so.” Ruth looked at Olive and the scowl fell from her face. “You’re an excellent worker and I will gladly give you a reference. If there was any other way...”
Olive lifted her head then and didn’t look quite so mousy. “Is William to stay on?”
“Samuel, why don’t you go and ride your bike?” Ruth had a way of asking that didn’t leave room for any answer but one. “Change your shoes first—the grass is probably still wet from last night.”
“I like these shoes.” Samuel felt it necessary to fold his arms.
“All the better to keep them from getting damp,” said Ruth.
Samuel considered some kind of protest but it wasn’t the day for it.
“Hurry along, Samuel,” said Ruth, before offering Olive a chair at the table. They sat down, huddled together and immediately started talking in low voices. Samuel guessed it was about money. That’s why his walk from the kitchen was a slow one; he practically willed his ears to reach back and scoop up the hushed words passing between those two. Usually talk about money would lead to talk about his mother. And he wanted to hear news of her so badly it sometimes made his whole body ache. But rooms are never as long as you need them to be and Samuel soon reached the door. He crouched down and looked busy with his shoelaces but Ruth was having none of that.
“Off you go. And change those shoes.”
Samuel passed through the hall and climbed the staircase like he was heading to the gallows. If they were talking about his mother why shouldn’t he hear what they were saying? She belonged to him, didn’t she? The whole trouble about money had something to do with her and why she’d been away so long—one hundred and thirteen days to be exact. Hadn’t he been wishing and praying for her to come home day and night? And if they were going to sit there and whisper about her, talking among themselves as if she was their concern and not his, then what choice did he have but to try and listen in? He knew that adults had their secrets and there were some things he didn’t need to know. Ruth had told him so a hundred times. But rather like the dust he’d discovered in her kitchen, the boy was starting to realize that just because a thing is said, it didn’t make it true.
2
Samuel always ran home after school. Mostly Joseph would run with him despite his view that hills were ludicrous things that didn’t warrant running up. Joseph was his best friend, though sometimes Samuel worried that such a title was fraudulent due to the fact that Joseph was his only friend. Still, his father used to say you only need one good friend in life. Joseph lived in the gatehouse at Braddon Hall, which was just over the hill from Samuel’s place. His mother cooked for the lord’s family and his father worked the land there.
“I don’t see why we have to run home every day like it’s the bloody Olympics.” Joseph dropped his school bag on the grass and spat. “Walking will get you there just the same.”
Samuel never could explain it. How he ran home every day with a tempest whirling in his chest. And that it was hope. Hope that today his mother would be there waiting for him. Or that another postcard would come from her. That he would hear something, anything, and know where she was now and, most important of all, when she was coming home. But you don’t say such things aloud, even to a best friend.
“I like to run,” was his reply.
“Well, that’s barmy,” said Joseph, wiping the sweat from his chin.
Samuel’s house crested the hill and there was always a certain amount of pain at the steepest point—more so today because his shin, which Ruth had covered that morning, still ached. But he pushed on, practically leaping through the open gates when he reached the house.
“Meet you here at eight?” called Joseph from behind him.
Samuel nodded. They walked to school together every morning.
He walked quickly up the drive, the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet never failing to satisfy him. His gaze was fixed on the house, and though it was tempting, he didn’t steal so much as a sideways glance at the kitchen garden with hopes of spotting his rabbit. He looked only at the house. Though it wasn’t the equal of Braddon Hall, the building was still vast and rather formidable. It sat on the outskirts of the village on what had once been a large estate. All of the farmland had been sold after his father died and now the stables stood empty and the only other buildings were the woodshed and the main house with its two square wings of pale yellow stone, its rows of large sash windows in groups of three and its forest of chimney pots sprouting across the roofline.
Samuel dropped his school bag and coat on the checkered floor, taking off his hat and flinging it on top of the bag, and then raced down the hall. He stopped abruptly. Turned around and hurried back, pushing the door closed—gently. Ruth didn’t tolerate open front doors and she didn’t tolerate slamming doors, either.
By the time he reached the back of the house, he was moving at what he considered an ideal speed. But there was a left turn into the kitchen and it came sooner than he anticipated. He skidded across the floor, hit the wall with his shoulder and lurched into the room.
Ruth was at the kitchen table kneading a lump of dough. She didn’t look up. “I would think you’d know better than to storm into my kitchen like you’re running from a burni
ng building.”
“Sorry, Ruth,” said Samuel. “Did Mother—?”
“Just what are you doing with that tie?” Ruth said. “It’s the second one you’ve needed this year, and there won’t be a third, so you’d be wise to take better care of it.”
Samuel looked down. His school tie was balled up in his fist. He apologized again and set it down on the bench beside him.
“How was school, then?” asked Ruth.
The boy shrugged. “Okay.”
“Such enthusiasm, Samuel.” The boy watched as Ruth rolled the dough, pushing it down with her fists, her face locked in a grimace. A strand of her wavy brown hair had come loose and she blew it out of her eyes. “I’m making shortbread for the market, though I’m sure I can spare a few if you’re good. After tea, of course. Homework?”
“Some,” said Samuel. “Did she come?” It was a stupid question, he knew that. But he couldn’t help from asking it. “Is Mother back? Is she upstairs?”
“Do you suppose I’d let you stand here talking about homework and shortbread if Mrs. Clay had come home?” Ruth stole a brief glance at Samuel. “She’ll let you know when she’s coming home, I’m sure of that.”
“Then why hasn’t she?” Samuel’s eyes narrowed. “How can she stay away so long? It’s been over sixteen weeks, that’s one hundred and fifteen days.”
“I’ve told you—there’s no sense in counting the days, Samuel. It’ll only get you worked up and we know how that goes.”
Samuel crossed his arms then. “I will count them, every single one.”
“Suit yourself. Your mother might be finished with those bankers any day now—but America’s an awful long way. It’s not like catching a train.” She smiled but like always it wasn’t entirely convincing. “You should know that better than anyone—you’re always poring over that book of maps.”
“It’s an atlas.”
“I stand corrected.” Ruth licked her lips. “Look, I know it doesn’t make it any easier but your mother has a lot of very important matters to attend to, and when you’re on a big trip like she is, I expect time just runs away on you.”
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