“To be blunt, no I don’t. I’ve learnt to take what Jasper says with a pinch of salt. You have to with a child like this. It’s not easy.”
“I’m sure. But your son is observant. He likes to watch people, doesn’t he? Is there any possibility he could have seen something over the weekend that led him to believe Miss Larkham is dead?”
“Jasper was ill in bed all weekend,” Dad stresses. “I stayed with him the whole time. He couldn’t have visited Bee. He couldn’t have seen anything important because he didn’t leave the house. I can vouch for that.”
“I meant through his binoculars, watching at the bedroom window. He spends a lot of time doing that, doesn’t he? That’s what your neighbors say. I’ve checked outside—he has a direct line of sight into Miss Larkham’s bedroom from his. Has he mentioned seeing anything that’s distressed him?”
“Jasper wasn’t well enough to use his binoculars this weekend.” The muddy ocher is clipped into tight edges.
There’s silence again before Rusty Chrome Orange changes the subject abruptly. “Yes, of course. Remind me again, how did Jasper get those knife wounds to his stomach?”
“I’ve been over this with the other police officer at the hospital,” Dad says. “I let him out of my sight for a short time and he hurt himself in the kitchen. It was a silly mistake.”
“You didn’t think to take him to a doctor? He required stitches yet you delayed treatment, according to the hospital notes.”
Dad sighs button shapes of light ocher.
“Look, I’ll be honest with you. I made a mistake. I should have taken him to a doctor, but I knew how bad it looked. It would mean Social Services getting involved again and questioning how I could have let something like this happen.”
“Like today? That surprises me, Mr. Wishart. Why did you leave Jasper alone when there’s a risk he could hurt himself again? When you know Social Services are already involved after the knife incident, when they’ve been involved with you previously.”
“That was years ago,” Dad points out. “My wife died and I’d come out of the Royal Marines. Both were major life changes. I was on my own. I had no extended family to help out. I was depressed and we moved about a lot, but I’ve turned it around. I’m no longer on medication. I have a good job. Jasper has a stable life now. We’ve put down roots here. We’re happy.”
Rusty Chrome Orange speaks again. “You said yourself that Jasper’s distressed about what’s happening and you left him unsupervised.”
“As I told you before, I thought he was asleep. I wanted some headspace. I needed to run. It helps me think. I never dreamt he’d wake up and go over to Bee’s house. I’d warned him . . .”
“What did you warn him?”
“Not to go over to her house again and not to feed the parakeets. I thought I’d got through to him, but obviously not. He didn’t listen or fully understand.”
“I see.”
There’s a pistachio-colored rustling sound.
“Do you know what’s inside this plastic bag?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks.
“Err. It looks like an earring. A bird earring.”
“My colleagues believe it belongs to Miss Larkham. Jasper was concealing it in his hand when the police officers arrived. He tried to throw it away and became agitated when it was retrieved.”
“I have no idea how he got hold of it,” Dad says. “He loves birds. Maybe he found it somewhere. Or Bee gave it to him.”
“You haven’t seen Jasper with it before?”
Dad’s silent. I don’t know what head gesture he makes.
“If you look carefully at the earring, up against the light,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “Yes, exactly like that. Can you see a dark brown stain?”
“Erm, I guess.”
“We’re testing it for blood. We’re also getting a forensic team to carry out a thorough examination of her house, particularly the kitchen, where there’s a strong smell of disinfectant. There are other things that concern us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Dad asks.
“If there’s something you think we should know about Jasper, now is the time to tell us,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “Before this goes any further. Before it gets even more serious.”
“There’s nothing. I don’t know anything about what’s happened to Bee, if anything has, and neither does Jasper. This has nothing to do with either of us.”
“I’d like to talk to Jasper, if I may, to hear that from him.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Dad replies. “I can’t let you upset him again. He’s in a fragile state. You said yourself he’s had a fright. Talking to you again could tip him over the edge. He needs time to himself in his den upstairs. That’s his coping mechanism, along with painting.”
“Very well, but we may need to insist upon talking to him soon. Depending upon what our forensic teams come up with inside Miss Larkham’s house.”
“You’ll have to go through my solicitor first,” Dad says. “Because that’s the only way you’ll have access to Jasper and myself from now on.”
“Of course. We can go through formal channels if that’s the way you wish to proceed.”
“It is.”
“I do have to warn you this matter has gone beyond me. Social Services must be informed about today. Jasper was witness to a serious crime and assaulted after being left home alone.”
“That’s not illegal at his age,” Dad shouts. “We’re talking about twenty minutes or so, probably less. I had no idea Lucas Drury’s dad was going to turn up and go psycho. How could I? I’m not a psychic.”
“Calm down, Mr. Wishart.”
“I wish you’d all leave us the hell alone. I’m doing the best I can. I’m a single dad, a widower, with a son who has profound learning difficulties. Can’t you see I’m trying?”
“I can. This is purely procedural. It’s not personal.”
Dad gets up from the leather chair with a dark purple sound.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re gunning for me instead of Lucas Drury’s dad,” he says. “He’s attacked David and threatened my son. Isn’t it possible he’s hurt Bee too? He’s got motive, considering what you think she’s got up to with Lucas. Couldn’t he have found out she’s pregnant with his son’s baby and attacked her?”
“We’re keeping an open mind about Mr. Drury,” Rusty Chrome Orange replies. “Colleagues will interview him today with a view to pressing burglary and assault charges as well as making threats to kill. We’ll be taking things from there regarding our missing person’s inquiry.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Hopefully that will clear everything up and we can all move on.”
The door creaks open, light coffee brown, but I don’t attempt to hide. The colors stop at the foot of the stairs. I see two blurry figures through the blanket.
“Goodbye, Jasper,” Rusty Chrome Orange says. “We may see each other again soon.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m glad you’ve found her.”
“Do you mean Miss Larkham? We haven’t found her. Not yet. She’s missing.”
“Her swallow is a female bird and deserved to be found,” I clarify. “She’d be lonely without the other one. They have to make a pair. They belong together. They’re Bee Larkham’s favorite earrings.”
“Do you know where the other earring is?” Rusty Chrome Orange asks.
I shrink beneath the blanket because I can see it vividly, even when I shut my eyes. It was in Bee Larkham’s ear when she lay dead on the floor in her kitchen. I think the Dancing China Lady saw it too.
• • •
Dad lingers in the hallway, after the door bangs shut, dark brown rectangles. He must be counting Rusty Chrome Orange’s blackish footsteps too, calculating when it’s safe to talk. Is Rusty Chrome Orange out of potential eavesdropping distance?
“This is getting serious for both of us,” he says eventually. “You do realize that, Jasper? If they find traces of blood in the house . . . Your b
lood.”
“My clothes and the knife aren’t in the shed.”
“Of course they’re not there,” he says. “I told you I’d sort everything and I did. There’s nothing to worry about where all that’s concerned. It’s taken care of.”
“I am worried,” I point out. “You forgot to put the key back. That was a big mistake. You’d shout at me if I did something as dumb as that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What key?”
“Bee Larkham’s back door key. It’s not beneath the flamingo statue in her garden, where it’s usually kept. I checked before Lucas Drury’s dad arrived and attacked David Gilbert.”
“I haven’t touched Bee’s key.”
“Yes you did. You used it on Friday night to get into her house but didn’t put it back where you found it. That was a mistake.”
I count fifteen teeth with my tongue during the silence.
“Listen to me, Jasper. I promise you, I haven’t touched Bee’s key. I went there on Friday night, like I said I would, but didn’t go around the back. I went to her front door.”
He must be lying. Or could I have forgotten to return it in my panic?
“I went in and out the back door,” I shout, not caring if Rusty Chrome Orange is listening on the other side of the door. “Which means I must have used the key because it’s always locked. I always remember to put the key back. I didn’t forget, even when the baby parakeet died. Where’s the key now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Bee moved it?”
“That’s impossible. She couldn’t have.”
“Or, I don’t know . . .”
“Or what?”
“That leaves only one other option if you definitely returned it.”
I tap my foot impatiently, making gray-brown bubbles.
“Someone else knew where Bee’s key was kept,” he says finally. “They took it after you ran out of her back garden on Friday night.”
• • •
I’m systematically going through my old paintings because I’m determined to keep my promise to be a trustworthy artist.
I mustn’t attempt to wash over the truth with different colors when I revisit fresh scenes.
I find the canvas from the day I first discovered Bee Larkham’s key and place it on the carpet, close to my bed. I gaze at it with one eye shut, the way I’m taught to in art class at school.
Use your critical eye.
That’s my left eye. It helps me put things into perspective and reassess my paintings.
This isn’t my best by far. I mixed the sounds of the parakeets with people’s voices, using impasto gel to build up the correct textures. I also made irritating watermarks and smears in the bottom right-hand corner. It’s obvious I was anxious when I painted it.
Very anxious.
Worse than that, this picture is highly misleading.
It’s missing something.
I don’t mean the whereabouts of the key’s hiding place in Bee Larkham’s back garden, because I never paint what I see—only what I hear. That’s what counts.
But this painting was definitely trying to conceal something—a hue that wasn’t ready to fight its way through the other shades to the surface.
Not yet, anyway.
I mix my colors and start again.
30
February 6, 10:04 A.M.
Sky Blue with Muddy Ocher, Cool Blue, and Sapphire on canvas
“Do you think I could borrow Jasper for a few minutes, Eddie?”
A blond woman, wearing an unfamiliar dove gray dress, stood outside our front door on Saturday morning (turquoise). I inspected her ears (studded with swallows). She had a sky blue voice. This was Bee Larkham.
She was talking to Dad but looking at me. She must have missed me; although we’d waved at each other from our bedroom windows, we hadn’t talked properly face-to-face for eight days. I’d knocked three times to tell her the amazing news: parakeets were nesting in her tree.
My timings were always wrong. I’d waited until the silverish cyan of guitars or royal blue piano lessons had finished and the boy or girl had left the house, but Bee Larkham was either on the telephone or Skyping a friend in Australia and couldn’t break off.
“You can bring your binoculars with you if you want, Jasper. In fact you must bring your binoculars. I insist. I’ve got a massive surprise for you.”
“Of course, Bee,” Dad said. “If you’re absolutely sure he won’t be too much of a nuisance?”
“Not at all.”
I hopped from one foot to the other; ready to go. I had my binoculars around my neck as I’d been watching the parakeets from my bedroom window.
“Now, before I forget, are you free this Friday night?” she asked, looking at Dad. “I’m inviting the neighbors around for some getting-to-know-you drinks. Do you fancy coming? No worries if you already have plans. I know it’s short notice.”
“I’d love to come,” he said. “I never have plans on Friday nights.”
“Oh dear. Listen to you! I thought a good-looking guy like you would be out on the town with a different date every night.”
“I wish! Dates tend to lose interest when I tell them I’m a single dad with a child who—”
He forgot the end of his sentence and stopped talking abruptly.
“That’s their loss, not yours,” Bee said. “You shouldn’t waste your time on women who aren’t interested in children.”
“Thanks, I’m sure you’re right.”
“Are we going to your house or not—for the surprise?” I asked. “Because I thought that was the plan.”
“Yes, Jasper, sorry,” Bee said, laughing. “Us grown-ups sometimes forget what we’re supposed to be doing. Don’t we, Eddie?”
“See you Friday night, if not before,” he replied. “I look forward to it.”
“Me too, Eddie. It’s going to be a great night. I can’t wait to get to know everyone on the street better.”
Dad closed the door behind us. We walked across the road, looking both ways, because around four thousand pedestrians a year are killed after being hit by cars.
“Can I come too?” I asked.
“Where?”
Bee had forgotten already. She had a terrible memory.
“To the neighbors’ party?” I prompted.
“Of course you can, if your dad lets you, but it’s not really for the neighbors. I’m inviting loads of old friends who I haven’t seen for years. I’m only inviting the neighbors to get them off my back.”
“Why are they on your back?”
“You tell me, Jasper.”
“I don’t know that particular fact,” I pointed out.
Bee sighed wisps of almost translucent sky blue. “My mum’s dead and the days of me being kicked around are long gone. I don’t have to put up with it again. I don’t have to keep quiet. I can make a noise. I’ll throw a party if I want to.”
My worries had ballooned by the time we reached her front door; she hadn’t explained who was doing the kicking. David Gilbert was my number one suspect.
“Damnit. I’m locked out. We’ll have to go around the back. Sorry, Jasper.”
I followed her down the alleyway, picking my way over the rubbish. The grass was long and wet, leaving the hems of my jeans brushing damply against my ankles.
“Here we go.” She used her right shoulder to shove open a gate leading to an overgrown back garden. “Home, sweet home.”
She headed to a stone flamingo by the back door. After moving it with her foot, she bent down and pulled out a key. “My mum’s old secret hiding place.” She put the key in the lock. “The solicitor took it when he locked up the house. He said a burglar could find it and loot the place. I told him whatever. There’s nothing worth stealing in here.”
I wasn’t interested in the key or Mrs. Larkham’s solicitor.
“Dad’s name is Ed, not Eddie. He says if someone kicks me at school I should kick back. Telling a teacher would make me a nark.”
“What? Er, OK. Come and look at this.” She took hold of my hand and led me through the kitchen. I removed my shoes and followed her upstairs. Lemons were underfoot. They made my socks wet, but that was better than the old, bad carpet smell.
“What do you think, Jasper?”
Her mum’s bedroom had changed since I was last up here. A new wardrobe had arrived while I was at school and a large bed and dusky blue duvet replaced the mattress on the floor. Above it, where the wallpaper had been imprinted with shapes of crosses, hung my parakeet canvases.
“I wanted to cover up the horrible marks with your masterpieces,” Bee explained. “Now I have parakeets inside my bedroom as well as outside. What more could a girl ask for?”
I was so happy I didn’t attempt to stop my arms from flapping.
“They move exactly like that.” Bee laughed spheres of sky blue. She flapped her arms too. “The birds are everywhere—inside, outside, in my garden, David’s garden. They don’t have boundaries like we do. You can’t stop them from doing what comes naturally. They want to be happy.”
It took a huge effort to place my arms by the sides of my body too. I followed her to the window. The Dancing China Lady was no longer alone on the chest of drawers. Thirteen friends joined her, pirouetting, playing with hoops and parasols, petting animals, and curtsying.
Dotted among the ladies were glittery purple and black stones. I wanted to touch them but was too afraid of knocking over the ornaments. I figured they must be precious to Bee Larkham because they hadn’t ended up on the skip, unlike the sealed cardboard box I’d spotted among the junk on the way over here. Bee hadn’t cared enough to look inside before chucking it out.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Jasper? Even if other people think you’re wrong?”
“The parakeets aren’t wrong,” I replied. “There’s nothing wrong about them. They feel exactly right.”
I’d fallen in love with the parakeets from day one. I couldn’t begin to describe the feelings I had when I saw and heard them. I could only paint them. My colors didn’t always do justice to the birds. They couldn’t, not completely. Even the best painter in the world couldn’t capture their sounds.
The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder Page 18
