Boy at the Keyhole, Stephen Giles

Short, taut little thriller. The Clay estate in a remote corner of Cornwall is almost deserted; only the housekeeper, Ruth and the Clays’ young son, Samuel still live there. Every day Samuel returns from school, hoping for news from his mother. She sends Samuel postcards from America; why did she leave in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to him?

Samuel starts to suspect that his mother isn’t ‘travelling overseas’ and that Ruth is a liar, a schemer and possibly something far worse, but who listens to a nine year old boy?