Helen had been sleeping on a friend’s couch at the time, working as a waitress with a pay-as-you-go phone that was hardly ever in credit. She had asked about her father and been coldly informed that he had passed away a few months earlier from a heart attack.

There were no tears or dramatic displays of affection. No big funerals with men in sombre suits eating vol-au-vents and women in hats weeping into handkerchiefs.

Nothing like that funeral thirty years ago.

She’ll never forget that.

Helen left all the details to her mother’s legal team and stayed away. She felt no remorse at that. They hadn’t had that kind of relationship – or any relationship at all by then. Her mother couldn’t even bring herself to get in touch with Helen to tell her that her father had died. That was how little she was considered.

Out of sight, out of mind. How they had always liked it.

They had never met Mills, despite the letter Helen sent when she was born. And the telephone calls afterwards, none of which were taken or returned. Their only grandchild. A girl, in keeping with tradition.

When Helen thought about her childhood and those years after she left – and she tried not to as much as possible – she felt utter sadness at what she didn’t have more than regret at what she did. She would’ve liked the opportunity to introduce them to Mills, to show them what they were missing out on. A vibrant, colourful force of nature; the one success of Helen’s life. But there was no point in wasting energy on what could’ve been. She needed to focus on what was happening right now.

As she moved the boxes around, she noticed fingerprints in the thick dust coating them. The dust on the labels had been swiped away too.

Someone had been inside these boxes, had rifled through them.

Unease rippled through her, then she steadied herself. These boxes held nothing incriminating. If someone wanted to spend their time reading up on the ins and outs of Helen’s weird inheritance and who would get the house when she was gone, then they were welcome to do so.

It was the stuff stashed in the wall behind the loose panel that she didn’t want seeing the light of day. Everything dating back to a period of time she would do anything to forget, had done everything to forget since it happened. The diaries, school yearbooks, photos of memories shared – all of it hidden away.

She should’ve burnt it all back when it had happened. She didn’t honestly know why she had kept all of it. It would have done no one any good if the truth had come out.

Murder.

Plain and simple.