The Suspect

My family said he killed my mother. They lied… I was just a little girl, fast asleep in my stroller, the day my mother was killed. I don’t remember anything about the sunny day that turned so dark. But now, twenty years later, when the man walks towards me in the shadows of an empty street, his eyes on me for just a fraction too long, a shiver goes down my spine. I recognise his face from the picture in the papers. He killed my mother. I try to run but he wants me to listen. He says that he is innocent, that the police got it wrong, and that my family have been lying to me for years. My father and sister tell me to stay away from him. They remind me that because of him my mother never got to tuck me in at night or ease me through my first heartbreak. My boyfriend begs me to ignore him and says he could be dangerous. But when he is found dead, I am shaken to my core. Who needed to keep him quiet? I won’t feel safe until I find out what he wanted to tell me. And when I go to his flat and find a photo that proves he was telling the truth, I suspect that the person who killed my mother is far closer to home than I could have imagined. What dark secrets are the people I love hiding? And if I search for the truth, am I placing my own life in danger?