Chapter Twenty-Eight

Stuart narrates a visit nine years earlier to Annie’s Hampstead home, where Annie treats him with contempt. To earn his keep, Stuart agrees to grim chores, removing a long-dead cat from the shed and, despite Annie’s instructions, burying it respectfully on the Heath, privately naming the cat Tina.

Inside, Annie asks Stuart to tidy the bramble-choked frontage and hands him pruning shears from a sideboard drawer. Stuart glimpses unsettling items there—white gloves, toy handcuffs, and a vintage clown mask—which compound the house’s already eerie atmosphere.

As evening falls, Stuart cooks a proper meal, contrasting the family’s usual diet of convenience foods. Annie is out shopping at Brent Cross. Stuart notices Annie’s locked study and other sealed spaces, including a blocked-off attic door and a locked outhouse, which heighten his unease.

Jessamine appears, edgy and craving alcohol. Stuart reminds Jessamine they are pausing drinking, and he describes her daily pull toward the pub around late morning, which he tries to counter with distractions. Sober, Jessamine is irritable and dark, and the household feels tense.

Stuart concludes that the house holds more than clutter: it carries fractures and secrets lurking behind locked doors and rituals, and he resolves to uncover whatever has been brutally broken within this family.