The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder

by Sarah J. Harris

  Don’t leave the letter. Ask what time he’ll be back and say you’ll pop back later because that’s what friends do.

  I rang the doorbell. The wavering silver-blue lines erupted into reddish orange triangles. A dog barking.

  In my picture, the color obliterated the vivid purple and greens of the electric guitar. The beautiful notes had been savaged to death.

  “Get that, will you, Son?” a man’s murky dark brown voice shouted. “I’m on the phone.”

  We’d talked a lot about Lucas’s dad.

  Don’t make him angry. He’s got a terrible temper.

  Bee hadn’t prepared me for this.

  I hadn’t signed up for this: a dog.

  The red triangles stretch into pointed deep orange darts.

  “For the love of God, shut up, Duke! Get the door! I’m still on hold.” Dirty brown spikes with gray edges.

  I was about to leave but hesitated for a fraction of a second too long. The door opened. I screamed, stumbled backwards, and fell as a dog leapt out. Propped up on my elbows, I watched the arch of its jump in slow motion, knowing it was about to land on top of me. Abruptly, it pulled back and yelped dark red, threatening shapes.

  “Yes?” A boy wearing the same uniform as me stood next to the dog, a German shepherd, I think. His hand jerked again. “Quiet, Duke.” He looked at me. “Jasper? From Vincent Gardens? You watch people from your bedroom window with binoculars.”

  “Yes, thank you.” Lucas Drury had confirmed he knew me. That was enough for me.

  I didn’t pay much attention to this voice. Ruddy red and dark orange triangles drowned out most of the rival color. I scrambled to my feet and shoved the envelope at him. One word was written on it: Lucas.

  I recited what Bee had told me to say. “It’s an emergency. She has to see you tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. It’s important. Use the back door key. Don’t tell anyone. Particularly not your dad.”

  “Er, what?” the boy said.

  A man in a faded navy blue baseball cap joined him at the door. Jeans. White trainers, possibly. I watched the dog’s pointy red triangles, unable to tear my gaze away.

  “Who is it?”

  “No one important. Some freak from school.”

  I turned and fled in case he dropped the lead and the dog ran after me.

  “By the way, Binocular Boy,” he shouted, darkish green with a tiny dab of mossy blue. “Is this note supposed to be for Lucas or me?”

  Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.

  I didn’t reply.

  I carried on running until I reached the park. I stayed on the swings for forty-three minutes, playing the conversation over and over again in my head.

  Is this note for Lucas or me?

  I ran over the colors in my head—Lucas Drury was blue teal and Lee Drury, fir tree green.

  The color of the boy I’d spoken to had been overwhelmed by the shades of the dog, but I remembered more green in his pitch than blue.

  I hadn’t spoken to Lucas.

  I’d given Bee Larkham’s note to another boy who looked like him, wore the same uniform, lived at his house, and had a similar-colored voice.

  Lee Drury. Who’d stood next to a man with a murky dark brown voice. His dad.

  It was another twenty-one minutes before I could walk home. Once I reached my street, I ran as fast as I could.

  If I were at home, painting this scene all over again in my bedroom, I’d add a smattering of light grayish violet dots to my picture. This was the sound of someone tapping on glass.

  Bee Larkham stood at her front downstairs window as I pounded the pavement with black disc shapes. I pretended I didn’t hear her banging. I couldn’t speak to her. I couldn’t tell her I’d delivered her note to the wrong brother.

  She’d never let me watch the parakeets from her bedroom window again.

  • • •

  The next day at school, Lucas Drury hissed white hollow tubes at me in the corridor. He accused me of putting a cat among some pigeons. His dad had read Bee Larkham’s note and hit a roof.

  Lucas said we were both safe for now because his dad didn’t know the letter had come from Bee. She hadn’t signed it with her name, as usual: only initials. I mustn’t tell anyone that she’d given me the note. I had to pass a message from him to Bee Larkham tonight:

  Don’t try to contact me or we’ll all get into huge trouble.

  I moved my head up and down, because it meant Lucas Drury would let go of my blazer and disappear back into the waves of anonymous faces in the corridor.

  I didn’t admit the truth—I couldn’t possibly tell Bee Larkham what had happened.

  I had to protect the parakeets. That was the most important thing. My original plan.

  That’s all I ever wanted to do.

  I remember that fact above every single terrible thing that happened next.

  44

  SATURDAY (TURQUOISE)

  Morning

  I’d pulled down the bookshelf barricade and was already dressed when Maggie, the new social worker, arrived to take me to the police station. I hadn’t gone to bed. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t painted. I hadn’t talked to Skin Tone or Slate Gray or apologized about the damaged books. I hadn’t eaten breakfast because I didn’t like the color of the cereal packet, but Maggie said we could stop off and buy a snack on the way.

  She brought me to that room again, the one with the dog-eared Harry Potter book, Top Gear annual, and evil one-armed clown. They welcomed me back like a long-lost friend when I walked in, but I told them I didn’t like being here and wanted to go home to check on my notebooks, which were out of order.

  It was day forty-nine.

  Some of the young parakeets were due to abandon their nests today. I had to say goodbye before they left.

  The room looks the same, including the vomit stains on the sofa, my vomit stains. Maggie had warned the detectives about the tricky mirror, which played mind games with me last time. They’re not taking any chances. They’ve got rid of it. The camera’s in the same place as last time.

  Watching me. Trying to catch me out.

  Rusty Chrome Orange has returned today, unfortunately. Maggie said his boss is in charge of the murder investigation. She thought it was important I talked to someone I already had a connection with, someone who is specially trained in how to talk to children and young people.

  The Boss was wrong.

  I have no connection with Rusty Chrome Orange. He can talk, but I guess he missed the training session about how to listen.

  There’s also a solicitor and an Appropriate Adult because I don’t want to see Dad. Not yet. He wouldn’t be allowed in here anyway. Another detective is interviewing him about our row.

  He’ll also be quizzed about what happened to Bee Larkham, Maggie said.

  In TV crime shows, they don’t allow suspects to be interviewed together because they can change their stories and try to make them the same. I’ve decided to stick to mine. I don’t know what story Dad’s telling.

  The Appropriate Adult will speak up for me, Rusty Chrome Orange said. She’s here to look after my interests because Dad couldn’t be present.

  I’ve never met this woman before in my life and have no clue how she could look after my interests. She doesn’t know what they are. She probably doesn’t know a single fact about parakeets or paintings or colors. I wanted Maggie because I like her color, but she had another appointment.

  “I want you to be clear about what’s happening, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “I want to make sure you understand why you’re here today.”

  “OK.” I rub the button in my pocket.

  It’s a relief to finally confess. Without Dad here to stop me, I can tell Richard Chamberlain—like the actor—everything. Well, tell him again. I’ll have to take it slowly, because there’s nothing bright about him, apart from the color of his rusty chrome orange voice.

  “That’s good, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says.

  I rub the button
faster. Harder. His voice is grating, scratching down my spine and igniting tiny balls of fury in my head.

  “Perhaps you can explain to me why you think you’re here today?”

  Maggie the social worker had sat me down and explained some Important Facts before we came to the police station. She thought I was going to cry and put a box of tissues on Skin Tone’s coffee table. I didn’t need them because I already knew 99 percent of what she told me.

  I knew Bee Larkham had been murdered.

  I’d guessed the body in the woods was hers.

  I didn’t know her body had been stuffed inside the hen suitcase. That was the remaining 1 percent.

  I take a deep breath.

  “Because you’ve found the body of my neighbor Bee Larkham. A dog walker discovered the suitcase in the woodland not far from Vincent Gardens at around eight forty-five A.M. yesterday. You want to ask me questions about the murder of Bee Larkham.”

  “Very good.” Rusty Chrome Orange’s head bobs up and down. It reminds me of an old TV commercial with a nodding dog. I love that dog. I don’t love Rusty Chrome Orange. It’s not “very good” that Bee Larkham was murdered. Shouldn’t he be reprimanded for saying something as dumb as that? Her murder is probably the polar opposite of “very good.”

  “Now I want you to think carefully before you answer the next question, Jasper.” I count five seconds. “Can you tell me the last time you saw Bee Larkham?”

  Another simple question. “I saw her the day she died. A week ago on Friday.”

  “That’s interesting, Jasper. And helpful.”

  I try to button a circular blob-shaped sigh, but it escapes from my mouth. It’s neither interesting nor helpful. It’s the truth. It’s what I told him during our First Account if he’d bothered to listen.

  Ice blue crystals with glittery edges and jagged silver icicles.

  “Can you explain to all of us what you mean when you say that was the day Bee Larkham died?” Rusty Chrome Orange continues.

  Seriously? Wasn’t I clear enough?

  “Friday, April eighth,” I stress, “was the day Bee Larkham was murdered.”

  My solicitor scribbles in his pad. Why is he writing down what I’ve said when he can play back the camera footage? Is he afraid it’s not working?

  Rusty Chrome Orange leans forward. “That’s the part I’d like you to explain to me, Jasper. How can you be sure that was the day Bee Larkham was murdered?”

  I take a deep breath, deeper than the time I jumped fully clothed into that lake when Dad and me went camping in Cumbria. I knew it’d be cold, but nothing prepared me for how the icy depths turned my legs to stone, dragging me down to the bottom.

  Dad jumped in to save me. He’s not here today. He can’t save me again because he’s trying to save himself. Other detectives are comparing his story against mine, looking for chinks in our stories.

  “Because I murdered Bee Larkham.”

  Five words. I’d expected them to provoke a torrent of questions from Rusty Chrome Orange, but the room remains silent. Perhaps he still doesn’t get it. He can’t connect the dots.

  “I murdered Bee Larkham on Friday, April eighth.”

  I rearrange the words into another sentence to help Rusty Chrome Orange understand. I’m building the story, brushstroke by brushstroke.

  “I’m sorry,” I add. “I had no idea I was going to stab Bee Larkham to death when I went round to her house for tea or that my dad would clean up all the blood and hide her body in the hen suitcase from the hallway and take it to the woodland near our house.”

  “I think now’s a good time for my client to take a break,” my solicitor says. His voice is a comforting coffee with generous splashes of milk.

  Now? I’ve only just begun my confession and it’s going to take forever at this rate.

  “I’m good,” I say. “Well, not exactly good.”

  Obviously, I can’t be good when I’ve killed Bee Larkham. I can never be good again. I can only ever be bad. It’s what I deserve. If I believed in hell, I’d be going straight there without passing Go.

  “We need to take a break, Jasper,” the solicitor says. “You and I need to talk before you say anything else to this detective.”

  I’m about to say I want to keep going, but Rusty Chrome Orange’s color blots out my voice.

  “Of course. Jasper Wishart has requested the interview is stopped. This interview is adjourned at ten fifteen A.M.”

  “I didn’t request the interview was adjourned.” I’m mumbling from behind my hands. “The solicitor did.”

  “That’s noted, thank you, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “It’s not a problem. We can start the interview again when you feel ready. Do you want something to eat or drink? We have cans of Coke and chocolate bars in the vending machine if you’d like a snack?”

  “Thanks, but Dad says caffeine and chocolate make me hyper.”

  “Well, let us know if you change your mind.”

  I’ve changed my mind already.

  Dad discovering I’ve had a can of Coke and a Mars bar is probably the least of my problems now I’ve confessed to murder. It might also be the last chance to have anything like that because I doubt there are vending machines in young offenders’ institutions or wherever it is they plan to lock me up.

  It’s too late anyway. Rusty Chrome Orange has walked out. The door clicks shut into a woody, textured circle. Only me, my solicitor, and the Appropriate Adult are left in the room. She hasn’t said a word. She definitely doesn’t know my interests.

  I feel completely alone. I can’t stop shivering. I’ve jumped back into the freezing cold lake again. This time no one wants to help pull me out. I’m at the bottom of the lake.

  No one can find me. No one will bother to look.

  45

  Interview: Saturday, April 16, 10:30 A.M.

  The solicitor was right. I had needed a short break from Rusty Chrome Orange. His colors cluttered up my head and made strange, unwelcome shapes. My solicitor’s name is Leo, which makes me think of a lion, a watermelon pink word.

  Leo has a milky-coffee voice and doesn’t look like a lion, which is disappointing. On the plus side, he has an easy-to-memorize black goatee beard and red glasses. Leo bought me a can of Coke and a Kit Kat because the vending machine was out of Mars bars. I’d warned him I might flap my arms like a parakeet, but he said I could flap as much as I wanted, which was nice of him. To be fair, he hasn’t seen what I look like when I do that.

  He was far more interested in talking about my rights and discussing what I wanted to tell the police. I told him what I’d done. I said this was something I wanted to get off my chest. That’s the phrase my teaching assistant uses when I turn up for our meetings at school.

  Is there anything you want to get off your chest?

  I found it odd the first time she said it, but now we have a good laugh. It became “our thing” after I told her it reminded me of the creature that bursts out of the man’s chest in the film Alien.

  Rusty Chrome Orange has finished explaining I’ve been formally arrested and cautioned over the murder of Bee Larkham. I have certain rights now, like the right to not say anything. I can remain utterly silent.

  “Do you understand what I’ve explained to you?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks.

  I move my head up and down. I don’t have to say anything. He just explained that.

  He tells me he would prefer me to say the word yes out loud if I can, but the camera will record my nod.

  I don’t say anything. I move my head again.

  “Can we continue?” he asks.

  Leo confirms that we can, his voice deepening into coffee with creamy full-fat milk.

  “We are resuming our interview at ten thirty A.M.,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “Please will everyone present state their names for the record?”

  We go through the list. Leo speaks for me because I don’t want to. There’s another addition, Sarah Harper. She’s also a detective constable lik
e Rusty Chrome Orange, but her voice is a more tolerable color.

  Dull light green.

  I wouldn’t want to paint it but can put up with it for now.

  Rusty Chrome Orange asks me to confirm that no police officer has questioned me about this investigation during the break while the camera was switched off. After Leo says this is correct, Rusty Chrome Orange starts at the right place for once, from where we left off.

  “I would like to read out what you stated during our last interview. You said: ‘I murdered Bee Larkham on Friday, April eighth.’ Do you remember saying that?”

  I do. I try not to giggle because this is serious. I’m imagining an alien bursting out of Rusty Chrome Orange’s chest.

  “Can you please answer yes or no, Jasper?”

  “Yes.”

  I start to rock. I can’t help it. No one tells me off or asks me to stop. Maybe they haven’t noticed.

  “Will I be taken straight to prison? I want to see my dad before I leave. Can I see him now?”

  “We’re only asking questions at the moment,” he replies. “That’s all that’s happening. You’re not being taken to prison. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I am worried about what will happen to Dad if I go to prison. I don’t think he’ll be OK.”

  “Your dad’s fine,” Dull Light Green says. “We’ll ask you a few more questions and you can take another break.”

  She hasn’t answered whether I can see Dad or not. I guess that means no. Maybe once I’ve confessed properly they’ll let me.

  “Perhaps we can rewind to that day,” she suggests. “To the day you claim you murdered Bee Larkham.”

  I often don’t understand the way people speak. Well, most of the time, really. People don’t say what they mean or mean what they say. They talk in code, which I can’t decipher. But I’m not stupid. The way she says that makes me think maybe she doesn’t believe my story.

  Now I want to block her colors out as well as Rusty Chrome Orange’s.

  You claim you murdered Bee Larkham.

  I imagine her other statements, as we get deeper and deeper into the interview.

  You claim a lot of things, don’t you, Jasper?