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

As soon as the colours started, I jumped off my bed and raced to the window, tearing open the curtains. A woman with long blonde hair held a glass while she threw herself around the sitting room. She danced like me, not caring if anyone else watched. Not caring if she spilt her drink.

Whirling, twirling, she wrapped herself in a brightly coloured shawl of shimmering musical colours, hugging it close to her body.

The colours overlapped and faded in and out of each other on a transparent screen in front of my eyes. If I reached out, it felt like I could almost touch them.

‘Jasper! Turn it downnnnnnnnn …’

The last word was long and drawn out because the sentence never finished, like a lot of Dad’s sentences when he talks to me.

He walked towards me, but I couldn’t turn around. The pulsating music pushed absolutely everything out of my mind. Our house could have burnt to the ground and I wouldn’t have shifted voluntarily.

I thought it was the most perfect combination of colours I’d ever seen. I was wrong, of course. Much better was to come when the pandemonium of parakeets arrived. But I couldn’t know that then.

I focused my binoculars on the house opposite. The colourful music had squeezed out most of the furniture from the sitting room. The sofa, a small table and chairs were pushed up against the walls by the side of a piano. A green beanbag remained, along with an iPod on a stand.

I recognized the dark brown curtains and greyish-white nets that usually hung at the windows folded neatly into squares and placed on the table. They’d been sacked, made redundant .

‘Good God.’ Dad snatched the binoculars off me. ‘What will people think? You mustn’t do that, Jasper. No one likes a spy.’

I didn’t bother to ask what people would think. I’d given up trying to guess the answer to that particular puzzle long ago.

Normally Dad’s grabby hands would have outraged me – it’s rude to snatch. That’s one of the rules he’s taught me. I didn’t remind him because the depth of colours had transfixed me.

They dazzled against the whiteness of the woman’s arms in the background as she waltzed around and around, her floral dressing gown flapping open as if she’d been caught in a sudden breeze.

I couldn’t pull my gaze away to look at Dad.

He was about to explain what I’d done wrong when the music stopped.

‘No! Wait!’ I cried.

The colours vanished as fast as the parakeet from the oak tree. They didn’t drift off or melt away. Gone. Like a TV switched off. But then …

The woman must have heard my shout.

She darted across the room to the beanbag. Bigger, bolder, glittering neon sounds belted out from the iPod.

Martian music.

These colours are alien visitors that only I can understand – colours that people like Dad don’t know exist. They don’t look like they belong in the real world. They only exist in my head – impossible to describe, let alone paint.

Silver, emerald green, violet blue and yellow simultaneously, but somehow not those colours at all.

‘She likes her house music, doesn’t she?’ Dad said. ‘The neighbours will be thrilled.’

It sounded like a question, but I had no answer. I didn’t know who ‘she’ was or what ‘she’ was doing at 20 Vincent Gardens.

Dad’s other choice of words was accurate for once. I was thrilled, along with all the neighbours. Not only did ‘she’ like dancing and loud classical music, she loved Martian music even more.

I sensed we could be friends. Great friends .

‘This won’t go down well,’ he said. ‘She’s already wound up David by parking directly outside his house.’

‘Who is she?’ I asked. ‘Why doesn’t she have any proper clothes? Why did the men take away her furniture in a van?’

Dad didn’t answer. He watched her wild dancing, throwing her hair from side to side. I think he felt sorry for her because she couldn’t afford furniture or curtains. She wore a slippery bright floral dressing gown, which kept wriggling down her shoulders and falling open at the waist. It felt wrong to look at her bare, alien-like skin, with or without binoculars.

This wasn’t the elderly woman Dad said used to live here. This ‘she’ – The Woman With No Name – didn’t remind me of an old person. At all. I don’t normally pay too much attention to hair, but hers was long and blonde and swinging. She moved gracefully around the room, twirling like a ballet dancer or a composer, conducting an orchestra of colour.

‘Who is she?’ I repeated.

‘I don’t know for sure,’ he replied. ‘Pauline Larkham died in a home a few months back. This woman could be a friend or a niece or something. Or maybe she’s the long-lost daughter. I don’t know her name. She’d be about the right age. David mentioned her a while ago. Said she never bothered to come back for Mrs Larkham’s funeral.’

This was news to me. I didn’t know the old woman who used to live over the road was called Pauline Larkham or that she’d died in a new home. Maybe she didn’t like this one much.

‘Well, which one is this woman? Is she a friend or a niece or a long-lost daughter who didn’t come back for the funeral and doesn’t have a name?’

Dad was infuriating. He didn’t grasp the importance of getting the facts straight. I knew one woman couldn’t be two or three people at the same time. She was either someone’s friend or someone had lost her and needed help finding her again.

‘I don’t know, Jasper. Do you want me to ask her for you?’ He fiddled with the strap of the binoculars, which made me itch to snatch them back before he scuffed the leather. ‘It would be neighbourly of us to welcome her to our street, don’t you think? To help her find her feet?’

I stared out of the window, confused. It was obvious where her feet were and she didn’t need his help finding them. She flitted about on the tips of her toes.

I didn’t want to point out the stupidity of his question. Instead of concentrating on her feet, he should have run out of our house and up the path to hers. I could have watched from the window because it was too soon to meet her in person. I hadn’t had time to prepare for the conversation.

Too late!

A man walked up the path to 20 Vincent Gardens, wearing dark trousers and a dark top. I guessed he was a thrilled neighbour, welcoming the new arrival to our street.

He banged hard on the door. Irregular circles of mahogany brown.

The music stopped abruptly.

I instantly disliked this visitor. He’d prevented Dad from introducing himself to The Woman With No Name. Worse still, he’d disrupted her palette of colours.

‘Uh-oh,’ Dad said.

‘Uh-oh.’ I agreed; this man looked like bad news.

The Woman With No Name tied up her dressing gown. Hard. Like she was fastening a parcel at Christmas to deliver to the Post Office. Fifteen seconds later, she appeared at the front door. Her mouth opened wide as if she’d sat down in a dentist’s chair. She took a step backwards, further away from the door. Maybe he wasn’t a thrilled neighbour after all. I didn’t like the way he’d made her mouth change into an ‘O’ shape.

‘Why is she walking backwards?’ I asked. ‘Has he frightened her? Should we call the police?’

‘No, Jasper. That’s just Ollie Watkins from number eighteen. He came home last week to look after his mum. Mrs Watkins is very poorly so I doubt you’ll see much of him on the street.’

‘Are you sure the woman over there’s OK?’