The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder

by Sarah J. Harris

  “You can hold on to me if you want,” Dad said. “I think I’m sober. Relatively.”

  “What? You can’t leave yet. The party’s only just getting started!” Bee turned around and around, spilling her wine. “Don’t be a party pooper, Eddie.”

  “I’m sorry, I must. Jasper needs to go to bed.”

  “Oh, what a shame. I was hoping you’d stay on for a nightcap.”

  “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot, but you know . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Bee Larkham,” I said. “I don’t think it’s necessary for anyone to stay on. The parakeets will be safe tonight. I’ve been on guard the whole time. David Gilbert hasn’t been anywhere near their nests all evening.”

  “Ha! That’s because I can’t sssee the little blighters at night,” the man next to me said, slurring scraps of claret gravel. “Wait till morning and I can get a better view. I won’t miss. I’m an excellent sssshlot.”

  I took a step backwards. No way. The diamond sweater man Dad had offered to help up from his chair was none other than bird killer David Gilbert. He’d managed to dodge my identification system; he wasn’t wearing cherry cords and didn’t have Yellow French Fries with him. His voice had tricked me by transforming from dull grainy red to murky claret, probably because he’d been drinking. More confusing still, I’d spoken to someone with a similar-colored voice in the hallway.

  Bee was wrong—inviting him here wouldn’t help us. It was a big mistake. He’d used it as an opportunity to gain reconnaissance info on the parakeets.

  “David’s joking,” Dad said. “Take no notice of him, Jasper. He doesn’t mean it.”

  I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand, but that couldn’t stop me from rocking on my heels.

  “I meant every word,” he argued. “He can tell the police that if he wants. Again.”

  “Please don’t do this, David,” Dad said. “You’re winding him up.”

  “Yes, simmer down!” Bee called out. “It’s a party. Remember, David? We’re trying to enjoy ourselves.”

  “Are we? I’m not sure what tonight is about.” David Gilbert slammed down his glass of wine, making it spill, and lurched towards Bee. “I’m sorry. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, those birds are a bloody nuisance—particularly first thing. You have to do something about them now. They’ll start coming here even earlier for food once it gets lighter in the mornings.”

  “I love the sound of them,” Bee replied, “which means I don’t have to do anything at all.”

  “It’s unfair to your neighbors, particularly to Ollie’s mum in the time she has left,” he continued. “The same goes for your music and DIY at all hours. Ollie says he has to bang on your wall because the constant noise is torturing her in her final weeks. Can’t you see what you’re doing to that young man and his poor mother?”

  “I can see you’re interfering in things that have nothing to do with you,” she said. “This is my house. I’ll do whatever I want.”

  “It’s your mother’s house, Beatrice. I’ve visited many, many times ever since you were knee high. Pauline was a good friend of mine, as well as Lily Watkins. I know she’d be mortified at the way you’re behaving, what you’re doing to Lily.”

  “You were never my friend,” Bee shouted. “Never. Not when I was a kid. Not now. Eddie was right. It’s time for you to go. You’ve outstayed your welcome yet again.”

  She swore a rotten-sprout word at him.

  I clenched my fists tight. David Gilbert didn’t move. He’d threatened the parakeets again and wouldn’t listen to Bee Larkham or my dad.

  “You heard Bee Larkham!” I yelled. “Go home, David Gilbert, and don’t come back. Cigarettes cause one hundred thousand deaths in the United Kingdom each year. I hope you die of cancer. I hope you die soon. That will be my birthday wish this year. I hate you!”

  “Jasper! That’s enough. We’re leaving.”

  Dad grabbed my arm and pulled.

  I screamed large aquamarine clouds with jagged surfaces at him, but he wouldn’t let go. I hurled his goggles, making a reddish brown sound with black nodules on the floorboards.

  “No!” Dad cried.

  The vivid greens and purples disappeared as the music stopped. Bee wasn’t dancing. She put her glass down next to the iPod and walked towards us. Reaching down, she picked up the goggles and handed them to Dad.

  “Thank you for sticking up for me, Jasper. No one’s ever done that for me before, they’ve never fought in my corner.” She turned to face David Gilbert. “Get out of my house, you stinking hypocrite.”

  Bee Larkham reached out towards Dad and me. Did she want to touch me? Hug me? Commiserate with me?

  I didn’t wait to find out. I fled her house to escape from the clutches of David Gilbert.

  • • •

  Dad followed me across the road and into our house. He didn’t say anything until I came out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth and changing into pajamas.

  “You can’t say things like that to people. About them dying of cancer. Even if you don’t like them. You can’t. OK? You’ll need to apologize to David tomorrow. I’ll have to take you over there. You can’t tell people you hope they die.”

  He’d repeated himself. I wasn’t sorry. I truly hoped David Gilbert died of cancer. There. Now I’d repeated myself, and I hadn’t drunk any beer, unlike him.

  “Will Ollie Watkins apologize for banging on Bee Larkham’s wall?” I asked. “Because that’s rude. I bet Bee banged back. That’s what I’d do if someone pounded on my wall.”

  “You’re changing the subject. That’s something completely different. Ollie’s mum is dying of cancer and they both want some peace and quiet in their last few months or weeks together.”

  “That’s what I want too. Peace and quiet. Please go.”

  I shut my bedroom door and leaned against it, because I didn’t want Dad to follow me inside and start repeating himself again. I had to set my alarm clock as usual even though tomorrow was Saturday.

  David Gilbert planned to kill the parakeets in the morning, probably as they gathered on the feeders. I’d dial 999 again, before he had a chance to leave his house with his shotgun. The police had to catch him in the act. This time they’d believe me and stop him, mid-ambush.

  I wrapped the duvet around me. My mind whirred, keeping me awake, but my eyelids were heavy. I saw the color of the TV downstairs and the silvery white sound of beer bottles clinking as Dad opened the fridge. Their colors were in the background because yellow, blue, and green flashing tubes continued to thump out of Bee Larkham’s house.

  As I fell asleep, I thought I saw something else beneath the music: light brown circles.

  I had to be wrong. It couldn’t have been the front door opening and shutting because the TV continued to hum black lines with rough gray strands.

  Dad wouldn’t leave me alone at night. I used to have nightmares about waking up in our old house in Plymouth and discovering I was by myself. Mum said that would never happen.

  Leaving me on my own would be all shades of wrong.

  34

  FRIDAY (INDIGO BLUE)

  Morning

  The spacemen arrived over the road at 8:02 P.M. last night. They wore white suits that covered their entire bodies from head to foot as they entered 20 Vincent Gardens. They stayed until midnight and left behind two police officers in a car.

  Eight hours and forty-two minutes later, the people in space suits returned to Bee Larkham’s house and Shona, a social worker, turned up at ours. The two arrivals can’t be a coincidence; their colors are virtually the same hues.

  Shona had a croaky gray voice, because she had a sore throat. I explained her colors would be totally different if she hadn’t been ill because voices can change dramatically like that. We debated what color it could be and I chose green. I couldn’t tell for sure what shade, maybe fern or racing car.

  “Can I let you in on a little secret?” she whispered. “I’d like to be brigh
t scarlet. It’s my favorite color.”

  “Now you’re being silly,” I replied. “Whispers can’t be bright scarlet. They are only ever white or gray moving lines that conceal the real color.”

  Next I told her she needed to wear gloves if she wanted to look at my tummy and should probably wear a mouth mask to stop me from becoming infected with her germs. Shona apologized and said she didn’t have one. She coughed a lot and fired questions at me about GP checkups and how often Dad left me alone in the house.

  I said “once,” because that was the truth for yesterday.

  We discussed the hole in my tummy. At first, Shona wanted me to play with a doll and reenact how I hurt myself, but she gave up because I couldn’t stop laughing.

  I’m thirteen, not three.

  I stuck to the lines Dad had given me before she arrived. I did a good job, I think. I didn’t deviate from the script.

  I was playing with a knife in the kitchen, our kitchen, when it slipped and cut me. I didn’t tell Dad to begin with because I didn’t want to get him into trouble. I covered it up and pretended nothing had happened. Dad’s told me hundreds of times not to play with knives.

  That wasn’t a total lie as Dad has told me not to play with knives, and Shona seemed pleased about only receiving 75 percent of the truth. I think that was all she had time for. She was due to visit another boy whose family had “complex issues.” She left ten minutes ago after promising to visit me again soon.

  Dad’s stood at the window in the sitting room ever since. He must want to make sure she’s truly gone.

  “Forensics are taking forever in Bee’s house,” he says eventually. “They must be going soon, surely?”

  I walk out of the room, up to my bedroom, without replying. I need to examine my parakeet paintings while I still have a chance. The spacemen won’t leave 20 Vincent Gardens until they find what they’re looking for: evidence of my wrongdoing.

  They’re not dumb like Rusty Chrome Orange.

  They’re going to find it soon. We both know that.

  It’s simply a matter of time.

  35

  February 13, 8:22 A.M.

  Parakeets Disturbed on paper

  Fourteen parakeets flew from the feeders in the oak tree with screeches of disapproval at the splintering bright green sounds.

  It was the morning after the party, and a woman with long blond hair hurled empty wine and beer bottles into the skip outside number 20. I’d stopped painting and walked over the road. I said “good morning” to the parakeets under my breath as I approached.

  “How’s your dad this morning, Jasper?” she asked, reaching down into her sack. “He seemed to enjoy my party.”

  “He’s in bed, Bee Larkham. He has a headache.”

  “That figures.” She laughed sky blue ribbons.

  “I reported David Gilbert to the police at six fifty-two A.M. I’m not sure they’re doing anything about him. They haven’t turned up yet.”

  “The police are never there when you really need them,” she replied quietly. “They’re never much use, but good on you for trying.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “You can start by helping me clear up, if you don’t mind. I need to get everything straight before tonight.”

  I’d meant about David Gilbert, but never mind. Maybe she wanted to discuss him inside the house, where we had more privacy.

  “You want to straighten things in the house before Lucas Drury comes round,” I stated.

  “Yes, before that.” Bee hurled another bottle into the skip. She didn’t speak for one minute and eleven seconds because she was concentrating on her aim.

  “Jasper, you do know you mustn’t tell anyone about Lucas? Not at school or anyone on this street. Not even your dad. Particularly not your dad.”

  “OK. But Dad would probably understand why you want to save Lucas. He was in the Royal Marines and saved lots of people’s lives before he had to leave.”

  “He probably killed a lot of people too.”

  I hadn’t thought about that before. I didn’t want to. Death frightened me. So did Dad sometimes.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m being a cow this morning. I don’t feel myself after that row with David. Have you had breakfast?”

  “Not yet. Dad’s not up.”

  “Come inside,” she said. “I’ll look after you. We’ll play happy families and pretend we’re mum and son. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jasper?”

  I moved my head up and down into the pattern of an affirmative gesture.

  “Good. We’ll talk about David and the parakeets and I can show you the new crystals I bought. Like this one.” She whipped out a long silver chain from beneath her top. Attached to the end was a black tubular stone. “Obsidian is one of the strongest protection stones in the world, Jasper.” She took a step closer towards me. “Which means neither of us has anything to be frightened of anymore.”

  • • •

  Bee Larkham’s cereal wasn’t the same as my usual one, so I pretended I wasn’t hungry because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She gave me a bin bag and gloves, and I walked around downstairs, helping pick up cans and cigarette butts. When that was done, I headed straight for the bedroom, which was my favorite place in the house.

  Bee hadn’t had time to make her bed. The duvet was pulled back, and beneath the pillow, the ears of a white rabbit poked out from the corner of a steel blue notebook. I didn’t touch it because that was private. I kept my notebooks close to my bed too and didn’t like Dad looking in them.

  Beside the bed was a small, clear stone and plastic sweet wrappers. I threw the rubbish into the bin bag too and spotted an empty beer can in the corner, but the sound of the parakeets drew me to the window.

  Why oh why hadn’t I brought my binoculars with me? I vowed to carry them around with me at all times.

  Dark mahogany brown, elongated shapes.

  Someone was knocking on the front door. I couldn’t see who had turned up when I looked directly down, even when I pressed my body against the glass. Bee stopped the vacuum cleaner’s gray and white spirals and opened the door.

  Two parakeets climbed out of the hole and fluttered up to their friends, higher in the tree.

  I didn’t hear what was being said downstairs at first. The angry birds screeched icy green and yellow glass at each other, distracting me.

  Bee’s voice rang out, luminous sky blue with white points: “No!”

  Was David Gilbert back? I reached for the mobile in my pocket. Not there. I’d left it at home. I raced to the top of the landing, fists clenched. I didn’t pick up one of the china ladies this time because I knew how much they meant to Bee.

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” she said. “The answer’s no.”

  A voice—whitish with almost translucent, quivering lines and a pale red hue—murmured softly: “Please.”

  David Gilbert must have wanted Bee to accept his apology about last night because it’s rude to upset your hostess. I didn’t hear what else he said, but it distressed her even more.

  “I don’t want your flowers! Like that makes it all OK?”

  I was proud of Bee, the way she stood up to the dangerous bird killer. She didn’t seem to need my help.

  The man muttered another set of white, wavering lines with pale reddish edges.

  “Stop coming here,” she said. “Or I’ll call the police. I’ll tell them everything. I’ll give them my diary. I mean it. It’s a record of everything that’s happened.”

  I had no idea she was keeping a log of David Gilbert’s movements too.

  I clapped loudly as she slammed the front door.

  Dark brown with black running through.

  Bee ran up the stairs, straight past me and into the bedroom, without saying a word. I followed as she flung open the window and leaned out. She didn’t want me to see her crying.

  “Don’t worry, Bee Larkham,” I said. “The police will listen to y
ou if you report him. It’ll help our case against him if you give them your diary. They’ll take more notice of your records than my notebooks because I’m just a kid and they don’t believe me.”

  Bee turned around. She picked up one of the china ladies from the chest of drawers. The woman clutched a parasol tightly. “What case are you talking about, Jasper?”

  “David Gilbert’s threats to kill the parakeets,” I prompted.

  “Oh, that.”

  Her grip must have accidentally loosened as she leaned out of the window again. I heard hundreds of small, silver-white tubes as the figurine smashed on the ground below.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” she replied. “You’re not the person who’s going to be very, very sorry.”

  • • •

  Later that evening I tried to mend the ornament. I’d scooped up as many pieces as I could from the front garden. I’d wanted to return her so Bee Larkham would place her back in the window, but I couldn’t find all the fragments of the parasol and gown. They’d smashed to dust.

  I was far too embarrassed by my messy glue and the lady’s cracked face and ruined dress and parasol to give her back. I put her under my bed because I didn’t want to upset Bee Larkham. I wanted to protect her from the truth:

  Some things are too fragile for this earth. They can never be fixed.

  36

  FRIDAY (INDIGO BLUE)

  Still That Morning

  I spread out my parakeet paintings on the carpet and compare them alongside my notebooks. A pattern emerges, which I’d never noticed before. Whenever I delivered one of Bee Larkham’s envelopes to the science drawer, I spent an hour after school in her bedroom, which later produced three paintings and sometimes as many as five or six.

  I was lucky Bee had continued to write notes when she could text Lucas on the mobile I’d delivered. She told me she liked communicating the old-fashioned way. It was more personal. Also, Lucas desperately needed stuff that had to be put into envelopes: money, Xbox games, and even cigarettes to cheer him up.