“Really? I thought I remembered Lily saying you helped glue it back together.”
“I did. Mum rang me at uni and told me what Bee had done. I came home for the weekend to comfort her.”
“Of course, you always were a good son to Lily, the polar opposite of Beatrice with Pauline. Shortly after her wrecking spree here, she broke some of her mum’s prized china collection too—the angel figurines.”
“I don’t remember. I’d probably returned to Cambridge by then.”
“Her behavior didn’t improve with age. Did you know that after Pauline died, she smashed her precious lady figurines? I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen, as ever. It was pure spite, especially since Pauline had promised them to your mum. I wouldn’t have minded a few on my dresser too. I told her so, not that it did much good.”
“Bee always did what she liked, whether it hurt someone else or not.” Ollie Watkins’s custard yellow voice coughs violently, making blobs of claret. “Sorry. I thought I’d shaken off this chest infection.”
“You’ve got run-down with everything you’ve been through.” Dull grainy red. “You need to look after yourself, Ollie. Get to the doctors and ask for some antibiotics. That should do it, along with quitting smoking, of course.”
“Beatrice Larkham was aged nine and three months and she wanted to die,” I say loudly. “She thought her mum was an old witch. She hated the Mad Hatter because he hurt her. He held a teacup and made her cry.”
“Mum’s collection is delicate. Please don’t touch it.” Hands take the cup from me. “It could break again and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we, Jasper?”
I look along the shelf and back at Red Jeans Man and Blue Jeans Man.
They stand side by side.
Them against me.
They’ve swapped clothes. Their voices merge, talking as one as their colors shift.
There’s a new battle line and it’s no longer running down the street. It’s inside this kitchen. I take a step towards Dad because he doesn’t realize we could be in danger: a scorched orange word with harsh red undertones.
“Everything is changing today, like it did in Bee’s kitchen on the eighth of April. The Dancing China Lady wasn’t there and then she turned up and everything was different.”
“Sorry, you’ve lost me,” Dull Grainy Red says. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Jasper. I think we should go.” This is Dad’s color.
“The parakeets haven’t been fed,” I remind him. “That’s why we’re here. We came to get the bird seed, not to have a Mad Hatter’s tea party with people who were never Bee Larkham’s friends.”
“I’m afraid I’m all out of seed. I’ve been busy sorting out the house before I fly back to Switzerland. I’m sorry, Jasper.”
“You’ve been feeding the parakeets, Ollie? You’re as bad as Beatrice. What were you thinking? I could wring your neck.”
“You’re a killer, David Gilbert,” I say quietly. “The rabbits and the parakeets know that too. You’re guilty. I knew that all along, but no one listened to me.”
“What did that boy say?” Dull red. Definitely dull grainy red.
“We’re going now, Jasper,” Dad says. “There are a few other pet shops we can try. We’ll head out after lunch, I promise. Somewhere must stock bird seed unless the whole population of West London has decided to feed the wild parakeets.”
“Heaven forbid,” one of the men mutters shards of dark red.
“I think he’s the Mad Hatter who made Bee Larkham cry,” I say, as we walk out the front door.
“Who?” Dad asks. “David or Ollie?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure.”
I can’t make up my mind because they’ve both confused me in different ways. I need to look at the white rabbit again and decide which one’s the real culprit.
65
TUESDAY (BOTTLE GREEN)
Later That Afternoon
Dad hasn’t kept his promise. Again. We can’t go and buy bird seed together because of a work emergency. Something about a hard-disk failure and having to restore everything from backups and retest all over again.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he said it was a total nightmare. If he didn’t go into the office straightaway and get it sorted his boss would go nuts and he could lose his job. Dad laughed when I asked if his boss preferred cashew or Brazil nuts, so he couldn’t have been all that worried.
Anyway, he made yet another promise: he’d buy bird seed on the way home.
I mustn’t open the front door to anyone while he’s out. Not even if I know the person’s name. Unless it’s a police officer, like Rusty Chrome Orange. Dad’s taken his key; he’ll let himself in.
I mustn’t dial 999 either. Unless the house is burning down, which is unlikely after last year’s rewiring and no appliances, like the iron or the deep-fat fryer, have been left on.
Dad wrote down Important Facts to help me remember them:
1. Don’t worry about the house burning down. I shouldn’t have said that. Everything in the house is fine.
2. Don’t answer the front door to anyone, unless it’s a police officer or a social worker.
3. There’s not going to be an emergency. You won’t need to dial 999.
4. Don’t get me into trouble again by dialing 999!! I wouldn’t leave you unless I absolutely had to.
We’ve estimated, using a route planner on Dad’s laptop, he’s likely to be away for seventy-four minutes. He could be back sooner, depending if anyone else from work turns up to help out.
There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Dad said he could ask one of the neighbors to come over, but I refused. I don’t like babysitters or tea parties. I’m safer on my own.
I’m worried now he’s gone.
I’m worried about the white rabbit and the Mad Hatter tea set that nine-year-old Bee Larkham broke.
I’m worried about Lucas Drury and his Surprise Visits that I had to keep secret. He borrowed his dad’s baseball cap and forgot to put Bee’s key back beneath the flamingo statue on the night of one Surprise Visit. He gripped me by the throat in the science lab and squeezed hard, making it difficult to breathe. Less than a week later—after Bee had been murdered—he looked like he’d fought a tornado and had a split lip and scratched hand. He blamed his dad for that.
But what if Bee had fought back when she was attacked?
I rearrange my pictures and paints on the table in my bedroom. I start afresh, slapping white onto the paper, but it’s dry and chalky in texture. My strokes are scratchy and lack precision.
I can’t paint properly, not when I’m thinking about the white rabbit. I dig Bee’s diary out from beneath the blanket in the den. I flick forward, past her entry about the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
She drew a picture on one of the pages—Alice, with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse. Underneath, she’d added a large teapot and cup and saucer. She must have gone wrong, like I had with the white paint. The whole page is crossed out again and again, using a black pen.
Mrs. Watkins agrees with Mummy that I’m a hateful girl who’s telling lies about a good person. They’re both praying for my soul. I’m not lying. I hate the Mad Hatter. He won’t stop. I want him to leave me alone.
I close the diary. I’m frightened of David Gilbert at 22 Vincent Gardens. He goes into houses where he doesn’t belong, like Mrs. Watkins’s house, and knows where people hide their keys. He wears hats: a black one and a brown flat cap. He could have a baseball cap at home. Doesn’t everyone?
He was friends with Bee’s mum, Pauline Larkham, and Ollie’s mum, Lily Watkins. He’s connected to everyone, to everything.
I thought he hated Bee Larkham because she was noisy and liked parakeets, but he hated her long before that. Bee was a bad child. She smashed Mrs. Watkins’s Mad Hatter tea set and destroyed Mrs. Larkham’s Royal Doulton china ladies, one by one.
Both women were his friends.
David Gilbert loves Royal Doulton. He admitted borrowing the Mad Hatter tea set for his niece and could have been nine-year-old Bee Larkham’s babysitter. He also liked the china ladies.
Was he looking for ornaments in the skip outside Bee Larkham’s house, the night I thought I’d seen the devil?
Maybe he wanted the last figurine—the Dancing China Lady—before Bee had a chance to smash it. Could he have tried to take it at her party? I remember the man with the scratchy reddish voice claiming he was looking for the toilet.
That was a lie—he’d made a beeline for the ornaments.
It’s why the Dancing China Lady was in the kitchen the night Bee died. He’d stolen it from the bedroom and planned to escape through the back door.
Had Bee been downstairs instead of in bed? Maybe she’d slept on the sofa in the sitting room. That was when she surprised him, after he’d stolen the ornament and was about to leave. She heard a noise and woke up.
I must tell the police my new theory.
Is this an emergency? Should I dial 999? I think about it for two minutes and thirty seconds. I don’t think Dad would necessarily describe this as an emergency because I’m seeing Rusty Chrome Orange again tomorrow. I can tell him this Important Fact Number One at the police station. If I ring now, it will get Dad into trouble all over again.
I check my watch. Dad’s been gone for fourteen minutes. He could be back in an hour. Or sooner. I can tell him when he gets back. I take my paintbrush downstairs with me to get a glass of water because it might not like being left alone in my bedroom. The house makes soft-pink-colored creaks, like a tiny mouse is scurrying about.
I should also tell Rusty Chrome Orange about the key in the lock of Bee Larkham’s back door. Lucas Drury knew where it was kept and so did David Gilbert. Maybe the dangerous bird killer was trying to put it back when Mr. Drury, wearing the baseball cap Lucas had borrowed, ruined his plan.
David Gilbert must have returned later, once the police had gone. Could he have nipped through the alley behind his house? I have no idea how the police sealed Bee’s back gate, but possibly with tape that could have been easily peeled off?
Anyway, the key is Important Fact Number Two.
I should tell Rusty Chrome Orange something else too—I’m sure I did leave the house a second time. I wasn’t dreaming. I saw the person wearing the dark blue baseball cap. Not Dad. Everyone believes that now, including me. It could have been David Gilbert in disguise.
He knows I don’t recognize him. Dad told him at Bee’s party I have problems with faces. He’s heard Dad call me “Son.” He could have copied his usual uniform of blue jeans and blue shirt. I make a note of Important Fact Number Three in my head, to tell Rusty Chrome Orange.
I run the water in the sink for twenty seconds because I like the bluish gray lines it makes, a different color to the shower. The kitchen clock says 2:02 P.M. Dad could be back in fifty-seven minutes. I walk past the sitting room door, which is open.
It was shut that night. I heard velvety dark chocolate lines.
Dad snoring.
Followed by the color of the shower.
That’s Important Fact Numbers Four and Five.
My colors confirm Dad’s story. He is telling the truth. He said he thought he heard a noise at around 3:15 A.M. He had a hot shower because his neck hurt from sleeping in the armchair that makes maroon creaks.
I wish he’d come back. I’d tell him I believe him. I don’t think he was in Bee Larkham’s kitchen. I definitely saw someone. I was definitely there. I remember the disinfectant smell and another unpleasant scent. It reminded me of Bee Larkham’s party and being confused by David Gilbert and Ollie Watkins.
That’s Important Fact Number Six.
I take the glass with me back upstairs. The bruised-apple step creaks. Before my foot can touch the next step, I hear a key in the lock of the front door.
Blackish dark green with a brittle consistency.
Blue shirt, blue jeans walks inside. He’s not holding a bag.
“You’re back too soon, Dad. You didn’t buy the seed. You need to go out again.”
Dad looks at the floor. Is he upset I’ve told him off? Angry? Annoyed? I can’t tell.
“I’m sorry, and thank you very much for trying, but you need to try again. When you get back I’ll tell you who I think murdered Bee Larkham and why. It’s all in her diary.”
He looks at the coat rack instead of me. He examines my school scarf, wrapping the end of it around his hand.
My mobile vibrates red and yellow bubbles in my pocket, which is odd, because the only person who ever calls or texts me is Dad.
I call up the message as I carry on walking up the stairs to my bedroom.
Called off job! Got bird seed. Back soon. Love Dad x
I drop the glass of water.
Help.
I type the word, but my mobile flies from my hand before I can press send. The man wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt has already dived up the stairs and grabbed my ankle. I kick free, but his hand clamps onto my other foot.
“Get off me, David Gilbert!” I scream.
“Where’s Bee’s diary?” he hisses white-gray jagged lines.
I kick him in the face. Hard. He curses under his breath, whitish globules. I scramble backwards; he’s quicker. He’s on top of me, crushing my chest.
“Where is it?” Juddering, hard white lines. He’s whispering again.
“Can’t. Hear. You.”
“Where the hell is it?” He coughs violently, curdled red and yellow.
“In my den. In my bedroom.”
The scarf is around my neck. Tightening again and again.
Can’t breathe.
He drags me by the scarf to the banister.
His breath smells like Bee Larkham’s party. Her kitchen. The kitchen of Mrs. Watkins’s house.
Cigarette smoke.
His voice is more custard yellow than red.
Two men can’t become one.
Wrong man.
He’s changed his clothes to look like Dad.
The color of his voice changed too.
Can’t breathe.
Choking.
Dad.
Want muddy ocher.
Mum.
Want cobalt blue more.
“It’s you, Ollie Watkins,” I gasp. “I know it.”
His grip loosens. “You’re wrong.”
I wheeze as his hands slip from my neck.
“I’m not wrong,” I say, coughing dark sapphire blue. “About the color of voices. Even when they trick me. I see through them. Eventually.”
“Jasper, Jasper.” His head moves from side to side. “What are you talking about this time?”
I take a large gulp of air. “Your chest infection and smoking changed the color of your voice. It went from custard yellow to scratchy red, which confused me, but you’re the Mad Hatter. You were at the party. You had a reddish voice because you were ill. You went into Bee’s bedroom to get the Dancing China Lady and you said goodbye to me in the hallway.” I wheeze and start talking again. “You came back the day before Valentine’s Day. You said sorry to Bee at her front door and tried to give her flowers. It was you. All along. You spoke in grayish white whispers over Bee’s body in the kitchen.”
Ollie Watkins hacks streaky yellow-red blobs.
“It’s tragic when a child commits suicide, don’t you think? You couldn’t cope with the trauma of Bee’s murder and the cloud of suspicion over your dad. He could still be charged, right? Why did he go running out of your house like that and tear away in his car? Very irresponsible to leave someone as vulnerable as you home alone. No one will question your death by hanging. Not with your problems. It’s sad, but understandable.”
My hand scrabbles at the scarf as he yanks harder. He tries to loop it around the railing. My other hand grasps the paintbrush. I swing it up and stab Ollie Watkins in the eye. He screams acrid yellow and dark red spots,
the scarf loosens, and he falls backwards, down the stairs.
I run. Up to the landing. Into my bedroom. He’s coming. Deep yellow, almost brown, footsteps pound up the stairs. Behind me.
I slam the door, grab the chair, and wedge it under the handle. It jams beneath the desk.
Bang, bang, bang!
He’s already here, but the chair’s firmly lodged in place.
Barricade assembled.
Will it hold? Will it hold?
Bang, bang!
The chair shakes, the door shakes. He hurls himself against it, again and again. Red stars explode from the large brown rectangles.
I run to the window and hammer on the glass, shards of brittle lilac.
“Help.” I mouth the word over and over again. My throat’s painful. I can’t speak anymore. “Help.”
I open the window as the parakeets flutter around the hole in Bee Larkham’s oak tree.
Help.
The banging stops.
Footsteps run down the stairs. Blurry lines of yellow.
Now I see sharp white points and bright ice green-blue tubes.
He’s smashing things in the kitchen. Throwing glass.
I flap my arms at a car. It drives past, deep plum torpedo shape with a navy haze, followed by a motorbike, gray and black intermoving lines. A man wearing a brown flat cap and jeans walks out of 22 Vincent Gardens with a dog. It barks yellow French fries. I wave at the man, who must be David Gilbert, but he drops his keys and bends down.
Bang, bang, bang at my bedroom door. Fiercer red darts. Larger brown rectangles.
“I’m sorry, Jasper. I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have touched you. Give me Bee’s diary and I’ll leave. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Ollie Watkins is back. He doesn’t keep his promises. He didn’t feed the parakeets—he hates them as much as David Gilbert. He killed Bee Larkham by strangling her.
He’s going to kill me and make Dad think I wanted to die. He’ll take Bee Larkham’s diary.
That’s why he’s here. He wants to destroy the evidence.
He knows I’ve read the diary. He’s the Mad Hatter who hurt Bee. He stole the Dancing China Lady because he wanted it for his dead mum.
The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder Page 33