Sarah J. Harris - The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder

‘Everything OK in here?’ Muddy ochre .

The encyclopaedia 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 goodnight 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 DC 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 ochre 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 colour.

‘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 cosy. 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-grey 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 ochre .

‘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 colour 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 favourite 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 centre. ‘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 ochre 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 ochre 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 colour 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 goodnight. He’s missed six minutes and twenty-nine seconds of Criminal Minds . A serial killer has probably struck already.

‘You know what colour she was. It’s the colour 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 colour,’ 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 colour. She looked normal to me. The way she looked normal to everyone else. Everyone apart from you, Jasper.’