that wasn’t on her usual teaching schedule.
5.41 p.m. – Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man.
Bang, bang, bang.
‘Open the door, Bee! We need to talk!’ Clouds of dirty brown with charcoal edges.
I was tempted to lean out of my window and shout: Go away and take your clouds with you!
Of course, I couldn’t. I was too afraid of the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen him before, but knew I didn’t like his colours. Or his baseball cap.
I had scanned the tree with my binoculars. The parakeets remained hidden in the highest branches; even the youngest didn’t draw attention by squawking noisily. Clever birds.
5.43 p.m. – Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man walks backwards down path, staring up at Bee’s bedroom window. Turns around—
The pen had fallen from my hand, making droplets of light, flinty brown on the green carpet. I dived into my den and buried myself beneath the blankets. I stayed in the dark, warm cocoon, running my fingers around the buttons on Mum’s cardigan and smelling the rose scent.
Finally, I crawled out and peeped outside my window. The Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man had gone. 6.14 p.m. I know, because I had double-checked on both my watch and the bedside clock. It’s important to be precise about the details.
I have to record the rest now, one hour and forty-two minutes later at 7.56 p.m., otherwise I’ll never be able to sleep, knowing my records are incomplete. I pick up the blue fountain pen I keep at the side of my bed and start the sentence again. It looks better that way, when my handwriting isn’t panicking and attempting to run off the page. I write:
5.43 p.m. – Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man walks backwards down path, staring up at Bee’s bedroom window. Turns around and sees me watching him with binoculars. He strides towards our house.
?????????????????????????????????
6.14 p.m. – Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man gone.
What happened while I hid for thirty-one minutes in my den? I can’t answer the thirty-three question marks I’ve jotted down.
Did the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man plan to confront me about my snooping then change his mind? I didn’t hear Dad open the front door. I’d stuck my hands over my ears and sung Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’ loudly. Still, I’d have heard, wouldn’t I? I’d have seen dark brown shapes, the rapping on our front door.
I’d have heard the colour of voices.
I update my notes:
Who was Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man and what did he want with Bee Larkham?
AFTER UPDATING MY RECORDS, I push the notebook beneath my pillow and return to tracing my finger over the male parakeet photo. I don’t want to think about the Dark Blue Baseball Cap Man. I may get nightmares again and they hurt my tummy even when I’ve taken Dad’s painkillers.
I don’t want to think about the blood either, but I can’t help worrying. It hasn’t gone away. Dad’s probably stuffed the knife and my clothes from Friday night behind the lawnmower in the shed at the bottom of our garden. That’s where he hides the sneaky contraband he thinks I don’t know about – emergency packets of cigarettes even though he’s supposed to have given up smoking.
‘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?’