The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder

by Sarah J. Harris

  The white rabbit jumps from page to page, throughout the diary, and lands at the back. There, it lies lifeless on the ground, all four legs sticking up in the air. Eight words are printed in capital letters beneath the dead animal:

  GOD WON’T HELP ME. I WANT TO DIE.

  “Bee Larkham wanted to die,” I tell Rusty Chrome Orange in the interview room. “That’s the truth. God did nothing. He never helps because he’s nowhere to be found.”

  Maggie’s with Leo and me. I told Rusty Chrome Orange I didn’t need an Appropriate Adult because Leo and Maggie are pretty appropriate. He agreed and said good point.

  “Is that something she told you?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks. “Did she discuss with you why she was self-harming?”

  I’m not sure what that means.

  “She hated the rabbit. I know that. She killed it at the end. She hated the Mad Hatter too.”

  “Do you know what rabbit he’s talking about?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks Maggie.

  “It’s the first time he’s mentioned it to me,” she replies. “He usually only talks about the parakeets.”

  “They still haven’t been fed,” I point out. “The feeders were empty again this morning. We don’t have any seed or apples. We haven’t been shopping yet. Can the police feed them?”

  “I’ll certainly look into that for you, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says.

  “Ollie Watkins’s mum died of cancer. I wonder if that’s why he’s forgotten to feed the parakeets.” He’s sad and lonely, like me.

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie says. “We can buy seed on the way home.”

  After that, Rusty Chrome Orange explains Dad’s story to me again, his version of events. Some of this Dad told me at home. Other parts he left out, like falling asleep in his favorite armchair after talking to a friend on his mobile and having a few too many beers.

  That’s where Dad told the police he slept on Friday night, after he visited Bee Larkham but didn’t go inside her house. He stayed on the doorstep. It’s why if I did get up in the night, I didn’t see him in his bedroom.

  Later, he thought he heard a noise, which woke him up. He had a shower to help his stiff neck and went to bed.

  His story’s verified. David Gilbert heard Bee playing loud music until 1:00 A.M. He knocked on her door and complained. She swore at him and he left. He’s been interviewed by the police too and says he didn’t kill her either.

  Once we’ve got that sorted, we keep going over the same thing again and again—the scene in Bee Larkham’s kitchen and the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man. I brought along my paintings, but Rusty Chrome Orange hasn’t looked at them. He has more and more questions.

  Could you have dreamt going over to Bee Larkham’s a second time?

  Maybe.

  Do you remember any other details that could be helpful?

  The Dancing China Lady shouldn’t have been in the kitchen.

  Are you sure you saw the ornament? We found Bee’s broken obsidian necklace in the kitchen, but not the porcelain figure.

  I’m certain the Dancing China Lady was there. She saw everything.

  Did you see the suitcase in the hallway when you returned? Had it changed position?

  I didn’t go into the hallway.

  Did you go upstairs to check on the parakeets from the window?

  No.

  Are you sure you didn’t see clothes on the bed in the front bedroom? Clothes we think Bee packed in her suitcase and someone else emptied out again that night?

  I didn’t go upstairs. I didn’t see the sparkly hen clothes. I didn’t see the parakeets.

  Do you remember the colors of any sounds in the kitchen?

  The clock.

  What time was it?

  Didn’t check.

  Do you recall any smells?

  Disinfectant and something else. I can’t remember what. I didn’t like it. It hurt my tummy mouth.

  Can you describe the man you saw bending over Bee’s body?

  Dark blue baseball cap. Blue jeans and blue shirt.

  Did you get a good look at his face?

  Yes, I saw his face.

  Would you recognize him if you saw him again?

  No. I can’t describe his hair color. The baseball hat covered it, but I don’t usually look for that sort of thing. I didn’t recognize the shape of his head. Or his socks.

  “Could it have been someone you know, other than your dad?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks. “Someone you’ve spoken to before? Did you recognize the color of his voice?”

  No. He whispered whitish lines.

  “Did you recognize the baseball cap?”

  No. Dark navy, dark blue, and black are common colors for baseball caps. I can’t use them as markers to remember faces. They’re easy to mix up, the colors are too similar from a distance. Plus, only a single light was switched on in the kitchen.

  “Could you estimate the age of the person you saw?”

  No. I’m not good with ages. He was kneeling over Bee. I don’t know how tall he was either.

  “Could he have been a boy rather than a man?”

  I don’t know.

  “Did you get the impression he knew you?”

  He saw me, if that’s what you mean. He definitely saw me. He didn’t say my name. He whispered two words to me over Bee Larkham’s dead body: “Yes, Son.”

  He knew Dad said that to me or made a lucky guess.

  “Is there anything, anything at all you can remember which might help us find who did this to Bee Larkham?”

  “Bee had wanted to die before,” I reply. “Then I accidentally broke her protective necklace and she didn’t have a choice. That was my fault. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

  “That’s OK, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “Don’t worry. It’s not your fault.”

  I am worried.

  I’ve seen a murderer but can’t recall his face.

  He’s seen me too.

  He probably remembers my face.

  64

  TUESDAY (BOTTLE GREEN)

  Afternoon

  Maggie agreed to stop off at the pet shop on the way home. The man with the moldy-damson voice said he was out of bird seed and wouldn’t be restocked for another week. Her iPhone gave a list of other pet shops within ten miles, but she didn’t have time to take me anywhere else. She has to visit another boy.

  Dad comes out of the house as we pull up; he’d been waiting for me at the window. He walks over to Maggie’s side of the car. They talk quietly while I wait on the pavement, staring at the oak tree.

  She must have briefed him about the bird seed problem before she drove away.

  “We’ll buy seed today, I promise,” Dad says.

  “We could try Ollie Watkins. He may have seed. The parakeets shouldn’t have to wait any longer.”

  “I doubt Ollie’s got anything like that in his house,” he replies. “Birds aren’t his thing. He hates their noise as much as David.”

  He’s wrong because Ollie Watkins fed the parakeets before. I don’t understand why he’s stopped. He’s a bird lover, like me. I cross over the road, looking for cars both ways.

  “Hold on, Jasper. Come back.”

  I walk up the path to his house, 18 Vincent Gardens, and knock on the door, lighter brown radiating out from the dark.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Dad says. “Let’s go home. I promise we’ll go out again and buy some.”

  The door opens.

  “You haven’t fed the parakeets,” I tell the man in blue jeans and gray sweater. “You promised. A promise is a promise. That’s what you said. You always keep your promises.”

  “Pardon?” Grainy dark red, a dull shade.

  “David. Apologies.” Dad steps forward. “Is Ollie in? Jasper has got it into his head he might have bird seed.”

  I stumble backwards. “You don’t belong here, David Gilbert. You’re out of order. You’re not wearing the right clothes either.”

  Blue jeans inste
ad of cherry cords.

  “I didn’t expect to see either of you,” the man says. “I thought you were both at the police station.”

  “Neither of us has been charged with anything, David,” Dad says, a rough, dark edge to his voice. “Because neither of us has done anything wrong.”

  “Dad’s on bail,” I clarify, as another man appears at the door. He’s wearing red jeans. “We didn’t kill Bee Larkham or hide her body. I didn’t take the Dancing China Lady. That was someone else. It was the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man.”

  The two men inside the house stand side by side. They’re the same height and both have dome-shaped heads. I make myself compare their hair: both darkish. One has gray streaks.

  Blue jeans/gray pullover.

  Red jeans/black sweatshirt.

  I can’t tell the color of their socks. Their clothes are all wrong; they should swap. Instead, I focus on their voices.

  “What’s he talking about this time?” Dull Grainy Red asks. “Because it’s usually the parakeets.” This has to be David Gilbert; it’s his voice color.

  I pick the second man, wearing red jeans, to address.

  “They need feeding,” I tell him, because this must be Ollie Watkins—unless he’s returned to his fiancée in Switzerland and someone else has moved into 18 Vincent Gardens.

  “Come in.” The man coughs scratchy custard yellow with strange-colored streaks. “Don’t stand out there on ceremony.”

  “Well, if you’re sure, Ollie,” Dad says. “We won’t stay long. I need to give Jasper his lunch.”

  The door opens wider and Dad steps inside. “Are you coming, Jasper? It’s only for a few minutes. Lunch just needs pinging in the microwave.”

  I step inside and the door shuts behind me. I can’t walk any further into the hall. I remember Bee’s party. I remember my paintings. I don’t want to be here. I want to feed the parakeets.

  “Are you OK, Jasper?” The man standing beside me is wearing his usual uniform: blue shirt, blue jeans. Dad.

  “It’s only for a few minutes,” I repeat. “No longer. It’s lunchtime. Macaroni cheese.”

  We follow the two men into the kitchen. It feels wrong; everything’s topsy-turvy.

  David Gilbert’s here, but Yellow French Fries isn’t. Ollie Watkins lives here, but he didn’t open the door and he’s wearing red jeans with matching tones of hacking coughs instead of pure Custard Yellow.

  The room we’re led into is equally baffling. It’s the same shape as Bee Larkham’s kitchen, but the furniture has ended up in the wrong places. A dresser with animal ornaments and decorative plates is up against Bee’s adjoining wall.

  “Excuse the mess,” the man in the red jeans says, pointing to a stack of boxes in the corner. “I reckon I’ll have a few more trips to the charity shop and the house will be ready to go on the market. I’ll book my flight back to Switzerland soon.”

  Ollie Watkins.

  “It’s definitely the end of an era,” Dull Grainy Red says. “I’ll be sorry to see you go, Ollie. It’s so sad—your mother and Pauline both gone within nine months of each other. That often happens when a close friend dies, I believe. It badly affects the one left behind.”

  “And Bee,” I pipe up. “Don’t forget Bee Larkham died too. She was murdered in her kitchen, behind this dresser, on the other side of the wall. Strangled to death, not stabbed, as I’d originally believed.”

  Dad and the two men look at me. I walk up to the dresser and turn my back. One of the plates has a jade-colored edge, which is vying for attention with a larger, turquoise-rimmed plate.

  “Is there any news on that front from the police?” Dull Grainy Red asks. “They’ve questioned me too, but they’re not letting on what’s happening behind the scenes.”

  “The dad of that boy is still in the picture,” Dad’s muddy ocher voice says quietly. “He’s clearly got a history of violence. I think he’s a likely candidate, if you get my drift, but the police aren’t letting on much to me either.”

  “Let’s hope the police charge him soon.” Custard yellow with deep scratches.

  “A terrible business.” Dull Grainy Red again. “To think this happened on our quiet little street. I don’t feel safe in my own home. Not after he went for me and Jasper like that in Bee’s garden.”

  “Don’t worry about him, David.” Dad’s muddy ocher. “They’ve got him for assaulting you and Jasper at the very least. He’ll have his day in court. There’s not a chance he’ll be back here any time soon.”

  “Maybe it was someone else. It could have been a random attack by a total stranger.” Custard yellow until the man coughs up dark shards of rhubarb.

  “That’s even worse! How will I be able to sleep thinking a random madman could break into my house?”

  “Don’t worry yourself, David. The police think it was probably someone she knew because there was no sign of forced entry. She let that person into the house on Friday, a late-night caller.”

  “No,” I tell Muddy Ocher, without turning around. “She didn’t let him in. The Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man used the spare key, from beneath the flamingo statue in the back garden. The back door was open. Mrs. Larkham kept the key hidden under the statue. The solicitor took it when she died and Bee put it back again because there’s nothing worth stealing in the house. Now it’s gone.”

  “That’s not right, Jasper,” Muddy Ocher says. “The police have the key. It was beneath the statue, like you said. They found it when they searched the garden. They showed it to me in an evidence bag on Saturday and asked if I’d seen it before.”

  “It was gone on Thursday afternoon, before David Gilbert turned up and told Lucas Drury’s dad I was hiding among the recycling bins.” I examine a plate, with ink blue patterns.

  “No, Jasper. The key was there all along. You must have missed it when you looked.”

  Dad’s wrong, not me.

  “Was that why you came into the back garden, David Gilbert?” I ask. “You’d forgotten you’d taken the key and knew you’d made a mistake? You had to put it back, but you were interrupted.”

  “What? No. I heard raised voices as I was walking Monty. That’s when I found you. I stopped that man from hurting you. Don’t you remember?”

  “Someone knew the key was there,” I point out. “That’s what Dad said. Someone realized they shouldn’t have taken it. They put it back again after Bee’s murder because they knew they’d made a mistake.”

  “That’s impossible,” Dad says. “Forensics arrived on Thursday evening, after Lucas Drury’s dad broke into Bee’s house. The police said the back gate was sealed to preserve any evidence. No one could have got in that way. The police would have noticed.”

  I think about that for a few seconds. I’d seen the police officers in the patrol car at the front of the house. The back gate is another missing part of the puzzle, I’m sure.

  “Anyway, how would anyone know where to look for the key?” Dad asks. “It couldn’t have been common knowledge that Bee hid it under the statue.”

  “Lucas Drury knew where the key was kept and liked Surprise Visits,” I murmur. “He has a temper like his dad and didn’t want Bee to ruin things with the new girl at school. He borrowed his dad’s baseball cap. He doesn’t put things back where they belong.”

  The colors talk over me, blotting out my cool blue.

  “Come to think about it, that is where her mother kept the key,” David Gilbert says. “Lily and I used it to water Pauline’s plants whenever she was admitted to hospital. I told the solicitor where to find it when he locked up the house after her death, but the boy’s right, Beatrice must have put it back. Has Jasper told the police the key was gone when he checked? It could be important.”

  “I’m not sure.” Muddy ocher. “I wasn’t present in any of the formal interviews. They’re getting information out of him slowly, as he remembers it, piece by piece. They think he bottled up his memories of that night and got them mixed up in his head because of the shock of what he
witnessed. New details come back to him each day, but it’s going to take time to get the whole story in the right order.”

  I move along the dresser and pick up a brown china mouse in a pink dress, which is joined at the hip with a friend in a blue dress. It has a name on the bottom, which I’ve read before. I check the next brown rabbit and the next. They have the same name. All eighteen rabbits wear light pastel clothes. Some play instruments or read books.

  “Royal Doulton,” I say. “Like the dancing china ladies.”

  As I turn around, Dull Grainy Red says: “I love Royal Doulton. It’s the best china in the world. Lily had fine taste. She used to collect it. Pauline too.”

  “These rabbits are all brown,” I reply, “but Bee hated the white rabbit. She killed it at the end of the story because it forced her to go down the rabbit hole and do those things. She hated it. It made her feel bad.”

  I move along the shelf and pick up a white-patterned cup from a saucer. A fine crack runs through the china, cutting an animal in half.

  “This one’s a hare, not a rabbit,” Dull Grainy Red says. “You can tell by the length of the ears. They’re much longer. I should know. I’ve shot a few hares and rabbits in my time. It looks like a March hare to me.”

  My hand trembles. Bird killer—and rabbit killer—David Gilbert stands directly behind me, looking at the delicate object in my hands. He wants to slaughter this hare, the way he wants to kill all living things. Except this hare isn’t alive. It’s already been broken. The teapot and three saucers too, but they’ve been glued back together again.

  “The infamous Mad Hatter tea set,” David Gilbert continues. “Do you remember this, Ollie? Beatrice smashed it during one of her tantrums. Such a bad child. Your mum cried for days. Pauline was beyond mortified, and I was distressed too. Lily used to let me borrow it whenever Clara, my little niece, came to visit. Sometimes Clara and Beatrice had Mad Hatter tea parties together in my kitchen when Pauline needed to go out, but that all ended after Bee ruined it.”

  “I only remember bits and pieces.” Custard yellow stripes. “It was a long time ago. Bee smashed the tea set while I was back at Cambridge.”