As usual, I had kept a record of all the relevant activity and used a fresh cornflower blue notebook. I started it especially because it seemed like the right thing to do—to keep my “after” notes separate and uncontaminated from the “before” notes.
3:35 P.M.—MALE PARAKEET FLIES INTO BRANCHES, BERRIES IN BEAK.
4:02 P.M.—BEE’S PIANO LESSON. KINGFISHER BLUE COAT BOY TWO MINUTES LATE. RUNS UP PATH. LOOKS AT EMPTY BIRD FEEDERS. BANGS CARDBOARD BOX COLOR ON DOOR. DOOR DOESN’T OPEN. KINGFISHER BLUE COAT BOY WALKS DOWN STREET.
4:11 P.M.—FIVE YOUNG PARAKEETS TOGETHER ON BRANCH.
4:45 P.M.—BEE’S GUITAR LESSON. SEA GREEN COAT BOY TAPS LIGHTER, DUSTY BROWN. DOOR DOESN’T OPEN. SEA GREEN COAT BOY GETS BACK INTO BLACK CAR.
Bee Larkham also had an unexpected appointment that wasn’t on her usual teaching schedule.
5:41 P.M.—DARK BLUE BASEBALL CAP MAN.
Bang, bang, bang.
“Open the door, Bee! We need to talk!” Clouds of dirty brown with charcoal edges.
I was tempted to lean out of my window and shout: Go away and take your clouds with you!
Of course, I couldn’t. I was too afraid of the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen him before, but I knew I didn’t like his colors. Or his baseball cap.
I had scanned the tree with my binoculars. The parakeets remained hidden in the highest branches; even the youngest didn’t draw attention by squawking noisily. Clever birds.
5:43 P.M.—DARK BLUE BASEBALL CAP MAN WALKS BACKWARDS DOWN PATH, STARING UP AT BEE’S BEDROOM WINDOW. TURNS AROUND—
The pen had fallen from my hand, making droplets of light, flinty brown on the green carpet. I dived into my den and buried myself beneath the blankets. I stayed in the dark, warm cocoon, running my fingers around the buttons on Mum’s cardigan and smelling the rose scent.
Finally, I crawled out and peeped outside my window. The Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man had gone. 6:14 P.M. I know, because I had double-checked on both my watch and the bedside clock. It’s important to be precise about the details.
I have to record the rest now, one hour and forty-two minutes later, at 7:56 P.M., otherwise I’ll never be able to sleep, knowing my records are incomplete. I pick up the blue fountain pen I keep at the side of my bed and start the sentence again. It looks better that way, when my handwriting isn’t panicking and attempting to run off the page. I write:
5:43 P.M.—DARK BLUE BASEBALL CAP MAN WALKS BACKWARDS DOWN PATH, STARING UP AT BEE’S BEDROOM WINDOW. TURNS AROUND AND SEES ME WATCHING HIM WITH BINOCULARS. HE STRIDES TOWARDS OUR HOUSE.
?????????????????????????????????
6:14 P.M.—DARK BLUE BASEBALL CAP MAN GONE.
What happened while I hid for thirty-one minutes in my den? I can’t answer the thirty-three question marks I’ve jotted down.
Did the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man plan to confront me about my snooping then change his mind? I didn’t hear Dad open the front door. I’d stuck my hands over my ears and sung Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” loudly. Still, I’d have heard, wouldn’t I? I’d have seen dark brown shapes, the rapping on our front door.
I’d have heard the color of voices.
I update my notes:
WHO WAS DARK BLUE BASEBALL CAP MAN AND WHAT DID HE WANT WITH BEE LARKHAM?
4
TUESDAY (BOTTLE GREEN)
Still That Evening
After updating my records, I push the notebook beneath my pillow and return to tracing my finger over the male parakeet photo. I don’t want to think about the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man. I may get nightmares again and they hurt my tummy even when I’ve taken Dad’s painkillers.
I don’t want to think about the blood either, but I can’t help worrying. It hasn’t gone away. Dad’s probably stuffed the knife and my clothes from Friday night behind the lawn mower in the shed at the bottom of our garden. That’s where he hides the sneaky contraband he thinks I don’t know about—emergency packets of cigarettes even though he’s supposed to have given up smoking.
“Everything OK in here?” Muddy ocher.
The encyclopedia tries to escape off my duvet. I manage to catch it in time, ramming my elbow on the pillow to protect my notes. Dad mustn’t find out I’m continuing to make records; I’m keeping secrets. He won’t like to hear about the things I’m remembering.
It’s 7:59 P.M. Dad’s come to say good night earlier than usual. A new episode of Criminal Minds must be about to begin on TV.
“It’s been a tough day, but it’s over now,” he says. “I don’t want you to get worked up about the police. I’ve spoken to D.C. Chamberlain this evening and taken care of everything. Bee’s someone else’s problem now, not ours.”
I concentrate on the parakeet photos.
“What about her body?”
Dad sucks in his breath with smoky ocher wisps. “We’ve been through this a million times. I sorted everything with Bee. You can stop worrying about her.”
“But—”
“Look, I’m telling you she’s not going to bother either of us again. I promise you.”
Silence. No color.
“Jasper? Are you still with me?”
“Yeah. Still here.” Unfortunately. I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could be a parakeet snuggled deep in the nest in the oak tree over the road. I bet it’s cozy. It used to be a woodpeckers’ nest after the squirrels left, but the parakeets took over the old drey. They always force out other nesting birds like nuthatches, David Gilbert said.
“Jasper. Look at me and focus on my face. Concentrate on what I’m about to say.”
Don’t want to.
I drag my gaze away from the book in case Dad tries to take that away as well as the bag of seed. I pull his features into a concise picture inside my head—the blue-gray eyes, largish nose, and thin lips. I close my eyes and the image vanishes again like I’d never drawn it.
“Open your eyes, Jasper.”
I do as I’m told and Dad reappears as if by magic. His voice helps. Muddy ocher.
“I’ve told you already, the police aren’t going to find Bee’s body because there’s no body to find.”
Now it’s my turn to make a funny sucking-in color with my breath. It’s a darker, steelier blue than before.
He’s trying to distance us both from what happened in Bee Larkham’s kitchen on Friday night. Maybe he thinks Rusty Chrome Orange has bugged my bedroom. He could have planted listening devices throughout the whole house. The police do that all the time on Law & Order.
I picture a dark van parked outside our house—two men inside, headphones clamped to their ears, listening to Dad and me talking, hoping we’ll let slip something incriminating about Bee Larkham.
I have to stick to our story.
There is no body.
I repeat the words under my breath.
The police can’t find Bee Larkham’s body if they don’t look for the body, and the police aren’t looking for the body, dense Rusty Chrome Orange has proven that. He’s trampled over the Hansel-and-Gretel-style trail of crumbs I left for him, never noticing they lead to the back door of Bee Larkham’s house. They continue into her kitchen and stop abruptly.
I don’t know where the crumbs reappear. Dad hasn’t told me what happened after I fled the scene. Her body could rot for months before it’s found.
If it’s ever found.
There’s no body to find.
“OK, Dad. If you’re sure about this?”
“I am. Stay away from Bee’s house and stop talking about her. I don’t want to hear you mention her name again. I want you to forget about her and forget what happened between the two of you on Friday night. No good can come from talking about it.”
I move my head up and down.
Dad’s supposed to know best because he says he’s older and wiser than me. The problem is, whatever Dad claims, it still feels wrong.
I pull out a photo from beneath the book on my bedside table. It’s a new one. Not new, as in someone just
took a picture of Mum, which would be impossible. She died when I was nine. I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral because Dad said I’d find it too upsetting. I haven’t seen this photo before—not in the albums or in his bedside drawer. I found it at the back of the filing cabinet in his study.
I stare at the six people standing in a line. “Which one’s Mum?”
“What?” Dad’s checking his watch. I’m keeping him from important FBI business. The plots are complicated. He’ll never catch up.
“Which one’s my mum?” I repeat. “In this photo?”
“Let me see that.”
I hold the picture up but don’t let him take it off me. He might leave a smudgy fingerprint, which would ruin it.
“God, I haven’t seen that photo in years. Where did you find it?”
“Er, um.” I don’t want to admit I’ve been rummaging in his filing cabinet again and the drawers in his study.
After the parakeets and painting, my next favorite hobby is rooting through all Dad’s stuff when he’s not around.
“It was stuck behind another photo in the album.” It’s only a small lie in the grand scheme of things.
Dad’s eyebrows join together at the center. “Wow. This brings back memories. It’s Nan’s seventy-fifth birthday party.”
Interesting, but he hasn’t answered my question.
“Which woman is Mum?”
He sighs, smooth light ocher button shapes. “You honestly don’t know?”
“I’m tired. I can’t concentrate properly.” It’s that useful lie again, a trusty friend, like dusky pink number six.
“She’s that one,” he says, pointing. “At the far right of the photograph.”
“She’s the woman in the blue blouse with her arms around that boy’s shoulders.” I repeat it to myself to help memorize her position in the photo.
“Your shoulders. She’s hugging you. You’re both smiling at the camera.”
I stare at the strangers’ faces.
“Who’s that?” I point at another woman, further along. She’s also wearing a blue top, which is confusing.
“That was your nan. She passed away a month . . .” His muddy ocher voice trails away.
I finish the sentence for him. “A month after Mum died. Her heart stopped beating from the grief and shock of losing her only daughter.”
Dad inhales sharply. “Yes.” His word’s a jagged arrow, whistling through the air.
I bat away his unprovoked attack. “She knew she couldn’t replace Mum. That would have been impossible.”
“Of course she couldn’t replace Mum. You can’t replace people like possessions. Life doesn’t work like that, Jasper. You understand that, right?”
Deep down, he must know he’s a liar, but I don’t want to think about that now.
“What color was Mum’s voice?” I say, changing the subject.
Dad checks his watch again. He should have pressed pause on the remote before he came up to say good night. He’s missed six minutes and twenty-nine seconds of Criminal Minds. A serial killer has probably struck already.
“You know what color she was. It’s the color you always say she was.”
“Cobalt blue.” I pinch my eyes shut, the way I did in the police station. It doesn’t work. I open my eyes and stare at my paintings. I’ve lined them up under the windowsill, below my binoculars. They stare back accusingly.
“Mum’s cobalt blue. That’s what I want to remember about her. Shimmering ribbons of cobalt blue.”
“That’s her color,” Dad says. “Blue.”
“Was she? Was she definitely cobalt blue?”
His shoulders rise and fall. “I have no idea. When Mum spoke, I saw . . .”
“What?” I bite my lip, waiting. “What did you see?”
“Just Mum. No color. She looked normal to me. The way she looked normal to everyone else. Everyone apart from you, Jasper.”
He turns away, but I can’t let Mum’s color go.
“I used to talk about Mum being cobalt blue when I was little?” I press. “I never mentioned another shade of blue? Like cerulean?”
“Let’s not do this now. It’s late. You’re tired. I’m beat too.”
He means he doesn’t want to talk about my colors again. He wants me to pretend I see the world like he does, monochrome and muted. Normal.
“This is important. I have to know I’m right.” I kick off the duvet, which is strangling my feet.
“What am I thinking? Of course she was cobalt blue.” Dad’s voice is light enough to be swept away by a gentle summer breeze. “Don’t get het up about this before bedtime. You need to go to sleep. It’s school tomorrow and I’ve got work. I can’t take another day off. You have to stop thinking about Bee and start concentrating on school. Your stomach looks a lot better, but you need to get your head straight. OK?”
He comes back, leans down, and kisses my forehead. “Good night, Jasper.”
Four large strides and Dad’s at the door. He closes it to the usual gap of exactly three inches.
He’s told yet another lie.
This isn’t a good night. Far from it.
I wait until I hear the dark maroon creak of the leather armchair in the sitting room before I leap out of bed and snatch up the paintings of Mum’s voice again.
Her exact shade of cobalt blue doesn’t come ready-mixed in a tube. It has to be created. I’ve tried to change the tint by adding white and mixed in black to alter the shade, but everything I attempt is wrong.
If these pieces of art are misleading me, are my other paintings a series of lies too? I sift through the boxes in my wardrobe and retrieve all the paintings from the day Bee Larkham first arrived and onwards. There are seventy-seven in total, which I sort into categories: the parakeets; other birdsongs; Bee’s music lessons; everyday sounds.
I’m not worried about these pictures. Their colors can’t harm me.
Not like the voices, which I arrange into separate piles to study their colors in more detail: Bee Larkham. Dad. Lucas Drury. The neighbors.
All the main players.
I painted them to help remember their faces.
Some paintings refuse to get into order. The colors of conversations bleed into each other and transform into completely different hues.
That’s when I finally see what was never clear before. It’s where my problems began and it’s why I can’t get Mum’s voice 100 percent right: I no longer know which voice colors are right and true, which are tricking me, and which are downright liars.
I need to start again. I’ll never know what happened unless I get them right. Until I sort the good colors from the bad.
I wet a large brush and mix cadmium yellow with alizarin crimson paint on my palette.
I feel calmer and stronger. I’m in control. I’m going to paint this story from the beginning—from January 17—the day it began. My first painting is called Blood Orange Attacks Brilliant Blue and Violet Circles on canvas.
I will force the colors to tell the truth.
One brushstroke at a time.
5
January 17, 7:02 A.M.
Blood Orange Attacks Brilliant Blue and Violet Circles on canvas
The grating blood orange tinged with sickly pinks demanded my undivided attention as three magpies argued noisily with an unidentified bird in the oak tree of number 20’s overgrown front garden. The house had been empty since we’d moved in ten months ago and various species of birds had staked claims to the trees and foliage.
I watched the magpies spitefully flutter and fight through the binoculars Dad had bought me for Christmas. Normally, I used them to spot the birds making colors in Richmond Park during our Sunday afternoon walks: the lesser spotted woodpeckers, chiffchaffs, and jays. I couldn’t see what bird the magpies argued with, but I already respected it. Although outnumbered, it bravely held its ground. The bird remained hidden behind a branch, its voice color drowned out by new, spiky ginger brown shapes.
A large blue v
an had pulled up outside the house, but the magpies didn’t break off from their vicious attack. A man wearing jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt climbed out and walked up the path to the front door. I thought just one man heaved furniture to and from the van, until I saw two men in jeans and navy sweatshirts carrying a chest of drawers.
I didn’t pay too much attention because two more magpies had landed in the tree. The three bullies had called for backup.
Then, something extraordinary: a parakeet shrieked at the magpies—brilliant blue and violet circles with jade cores—and soared into the sky.
Come back!
I opened my mouth to shout, but my throat was dry with excitement and no words came out. I’d only ever seen parakeets in Richmond Park, never here on my street.
I put my binoculars down and made a note of the parakeet in my light turquoise notebook, where I recorded all the birds I spotted in the park and on our street. I didn’t bother with the magpies. I’ve always disliked their pushy colors.
Across the road, the men continued with their work. Backwards and forwards. They lugged mattresses and boxes out of the house and squeezed them into the back of the van.
I scanned the branches with my binoculars, but I couldn’t spot the parakeet in the trees further down the road. The magpies had flown off too, proving the pointlessness of their territorial battle.
I continued to watch the tree, furious I may have missed another glimpse of the parakeet. When Dad told me it was time for school, I wouldn’t budge from the window. He tried to pull me away, but I screamed until my nose bled down my chest. I didn’t have a clean white shirt because Dad had forgotten to put a wash on again, so we agreed I could stay off school while he worked on a new app design in the study.
Long after the men’s unpleasant-colored shouts and the sharp yellow spines of the van’s revving engine had died away, the street remained strangely quiet. I didn’t hear the color of a single chaffinch or sparrow, a car horn beeping or a door slamming.
Maybe I blocked out other noises as I stood guard at the window. I focused on the tree in the front garden of 20 Vincent Gardens, not the house, but I don’t think anyone went in or out.
The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder Page 3