The Family at No 23: A totally gripping psychological thriller with a twist you won’t see coming by Kathryn Sharman

Author:Kathryn Sharman [Sharman, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2025-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

27

Iris pauses as she winds herself into her dressing gown on the way to the shower. She stands before Ben’s door. She had solemnly vowed that she wouldn’t go into his bedroom any more, to respect his privacy. But she feels the thread of connection with her son growing longer and thinner. Instead, she is reduced to eavesdropping, as she is now.

She leans her ear closer to the door. There is the sound of murmured conversation and Ben laughing in response to something said. It is conspiratorial, clandestine. She fights an urge to barge in. To demand to know what he is doing, with whom he is talking, what is it they are planning. This is her house, after all. He is her son.

Raising a hand, she is about to knock politely on the thickly painted door, when she notices something lower down, near her feet. Dropping to her knees, she runs her finger along the coarse indentations in the paint, scratches gouged here and there, that reach all the way up one panel of the door, up towards the handle and along the architrave. As though someone or something has been trying to get in. Spinning around, her eyes rake each surface around her. She searches the staircase, the walls, the other doors to see if there are signs of any more scratches, of any other similar markings, but there are none. They are only on Ben’s door. Whatever made these marks, only seems to be interested in her son. And with that knowledge, her quiet fury turns to a cold realisation. She and her family are not alone. They are sharing this house with others.

Iris backs away from the door and hurries into her own bedroom. She sits on the edge of the mattress and grabs at handfuls of the duvet either side of her; a safe mooring. The idea of climbing in, sinking down beneath the covers, pulling them over her head, feels so appealing right now. She would like to close her eyes, drift off into the longest, deepest sleep and only wake to find that everything is well again. As it was. Even to be in their old rented place next to the constant grind of traffic on the road, the windows always smutty with polluted dust. But then she remembers how it used to exacerbate Ben’s asthma. How she would worry about his chest. She lifts her head from the bed. She can hear the sound of her son’s bedroom door opening, his feet thundering down the stairs as he calls out a goodbye from the hallway. It is too late, she has missed him again.

Instead, she finds Steve in the kitchen. He is opening cupboards, staring into them sightlessly and then banging them closed. Whatever it is he is looking for, he cannot seem to find it. She can tell by the hulking curve of his back, the tension in his neck and shoulders, that he is upset. Angry.

She reaches for the kettle, fills it at the sink, takes a cup and then another, places teabags in them.

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