On the Strawberry Moon - 25. Chapter 25

‘So, Kalum is at the hospital?’

‘Yeah, he just collapsed.’

‘Okay, okay,’ the male detective rushed around gathering folders. ‘Jasper is in the interrogation room, right?’

The female detective was on the other side of the phone. She replied, ‘Yeah, he will be ready for you. I’ll stay here at the hospital; they’re doing a scan now. See what’s going on with Kalum.’

‘Keep me updated.’

‘Same.’

The male detective hung up and walked into the interrogation room.

Jasper’s POV

Jasper sat there, with a clear face of annoyance at the whole process.

The male detective sat down and started the time.

‘Hello Jasper,’ the detective said, straight away, looking him in the eye.

‘I’m not.’

‘Don’t.’

Jasper rolled his eyes.

‘Getting your brother to cover you? He is in hospital at the moment.’

Jasper stared at him, raising one eyebrow, ‘Right.’

‘He collapsed. But before he collapsed, he was talking about your other brother, Simon?’

Something steamed up behind Jasper’s eyes, a fury seething underneath his expression.

Jasper then cleared his throat and muttered, ‘How does this relate to my arrest?’

‘Are you not concerned about your brother?’

‘Of course, I am,’ he snapped.

‘How about your other brother?’

‘Simon? He’s dead.’

‘Why do you think Kalum brought him up?’

Jasper shrugged. ‘Don’t know. You should ask him when he comes out of hospital.’

‘That’s quite cold.’

‘You’re in here asking me about a dead sibling and not actually asking me about the gun.’

‘Did you bring the gun in because of Simon?’

‘What? No, I don’t give a crap about Simon.’

‘You have more memories of him?’

‘He was something that belonged in the toilet.’

The detective and his office exchanged a glance. Jasper caught it and almost snarled.

‘Would Kalum feel the same as you?’ the male detective asked, holding his pen on the notepad.

‘He probably would. I don’t know,’ Jasper snapped. ‘Like I said before. Why don’t you ask him when he comes out of hospital.’

‘The gun with the school, it seems very out of character for you,’ the detective said.

The lawyer next to Jasper had been quiet. He truly and absolutely was useless.

Sitting back in his chair, Jasper was unclenching and clenching his fists.

‘How do you know anything about my character,’ Jasper murmured.

‘Have you ever had these feelings before Jasper?’ the detective leaned forward. ‘Have you ever wanted to hurt someone?’

Jasper stared at him cold and didn’t reply.

‘Have you ever hurt someone you were close to?’

Jasper snorted.

‘Yes?’ the detective raised an eyebrow.

Jasper shook his head, ‘Just ask the question you want to ask, don’t tip toe around. That’s lazy.’

‘Why would Kalum want to pretend to be you? You made him, didn’t you?’

‘Kalum is a big boy, he can say no, it’s not a big deal.’

‘Does Kalum say no often to you?’

‘He can.’

‘But does he?’

This conversation was really winding Jasper up. He wriggled in his chair as if the anger was bubbling up inside his body, crippling him and about to explode.

‘Look’ Jasper finally slammed his hand on the table. ‘I brought the gun to school; I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. It was just a bit of fun. I wasn’t angry at anyone.’

‘You, sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘So,’ the detective said, tapping his pen on the folder. ‘Just a bit of fun? How many times do you shoot?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘You don’t know how many times?’

‘I just randomly shot.’

The detective paused, ‘Jasper, you know your brother isn’t the only one in the hospital. Those random shots your fired, they did catch some people. Your fellow students. They’re still in hospital.’

Jasper kept quiet.

‘Are they deceased?’ Jasper’s croaky lawyer popped up.

The detective replied, ‘We are getting the updates so far. They are all in hospital.’ He put his hands together and leaned forward. ‘You do realise that if anything happens to those people you will be charged with murder.’

Jasper looked at him.

‘That doesn’t shock you,’ the detective pushed on. ‘Murdering someone?’

Jasper did not blink.

‘Did Kalum know your intentions?’

‘No.’

‘I thought you guys were close?’

‘Right.’

‘Would Kalum have stopped you. What made you get that gun, Jasper?’

‘Don’t know. Fun?’

‘Did you plan what you were going to do?’

‘No. I just wanted to wing it.’

‘You searched online for the gun.’

Jasper sighed hard and looked away.

The detective opened his folder more and took some notes out. ‘It seems you’ve had it hard last few years.’

‘Most kids do. It’s not a big thing.’

‘Losing your parents then losing your brother,’ the detective runs through his notes. ‘Kalum and Simon both having that accident, and watching that, I can imagine that is quite traumatising.’

‘Accident, yeah,’ Jasper snorted.

‘You watched them both fall down the stairs, right?’

‘That’s what the notes say in black and white.’

‘You never said what happened. You just said you saw them both fall.’

‘Correct.’

‘Were they fighting?’

‘No.’

‘How did they both fall at the same time and yet you didn’t?’

‘I have better luck.’

‘So, your brother’s death was bad luck?’

‘Why are we still talking about that piece of dirt?’

‘You got a lot of anger there, Jasper.’

‘Because this has been a waste of my time.’

‘You do realise you are sat here with murder charges Jasper. We are trying to help you. To see what is going and why you did what you did.’

‘So, you think there is a link between that and Simon’s death?’

‘Why do you hate Simon?’

‘Simon broke Kalum!’ Jasper jumped out of his seat and yelled.

‘Did you push Simon down the stairs?’ the detective remained seated.

‘I wish I had!’

Kalum’s POV

Kalum was small again.

Those stairs were large again, each step felt like a high cliff that was far away. A weird dream again.

Images were distorted again, mushy like a wet painting, nothing was really in focus. He lying on his back and was at the bottom of the stairs looking up. At the top of the stairs, he saw Jasper and another Jasper.

Simon?

They were standing there, wearing green jumpers, looking down at him. One of the Jaspers laughed and the other Jasper got angry and pushed him.

They yelled at each other.

Kalum blinked and the two Jaspers were yelling but the words were garbled and high pitch, like random noises from a zoo.

Suddenly, one Jasper yelled, ‘You’re a monster, I hate you!’

The words rang out like a clap of thunder.

Kalum blinked. The other Jasper, the one who was laughing, went to turn around to walk away but he slipped and he was falling backwards, his arms were flapping as he was trying to save himself. The other Jasper stared at him and did not catch him.

He stood there watching as the other Jasper was falling directly into Kalum.

Jasper’s POV

‘Did anything bad happen before the incident, Jasper?’

‘We live in a care home, it’s crap, what do you want me to say?’

The detective clicked his tongue and flicked through some papers, ‘Some notes on here. Observation notes from support workers, saying they had some suspicions of something going on when you were around seven or eight?’

‘Oh.’

‘But when they talked to you, you wouldn’t say anything?’

‘Yeah. Cos I wasn’t the one doing anything. I had nothing to say.’

‘Because you weren’t the one doing anything.’

‘Right.’

‘So, there was something going on with Simon and Kalum instead? Did they leave you out?’

Jasper seethed through his teeth, ‘You literally have no idea what you’re attempting here.’

‘Then enlighten me.’

‘No.’

‘Okay, then tell me more where you got the gun.’

‘You already know this. You’ve seen the online sites, easy to access. Surprisingly.’

‘Do you know who you met up to get it?’

‘Oh, yes, on the dark web, everyone gives out their real name.’

‘Have you ever used a gun before.’

‘No.’

‘Were there any conversations you had with your brother Kalum that upset you recently?’

The detective paused, thinking quickly on his feet, ‘Did he push to talk to you about Simon?’

Jasper shot a dirty look at him. Then he folded his arm, ‘Yeah, Kalum doesn’t remember Simon. Simon was awful to Kalum.’

‘Awful?’

‘So, you know kids get abused in care homes? Like are you guys investigating that or not?’

‘Were you abused?’

‘Not me.’

‘Kalum?’

Jasper sighed hard. ‘Simon. Some guy, one of the carers, was touching him, but it was weird, it was only Simon he went after. He was not interested in me or Kalum which is funny,’ he snorted. ‘Since we are identical triplets.’

‘Did Simon ever tell anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

Jasper snorted, ‘I wasn’t going to help that idiot out.’

‘How come?’

Jasper kept quiet.

The officer next to the detective piped up, with a small voice, ‘You said Simon broke Kalum?’

‘I used to wake up and hear noises from Kalum’s bed,’ Jasper looked away, staring off at the wall. ‘All I could hear was Kalum telling Simon to stop touching him.’

The detective didn’t say anything.

‘He would always have bruises all over him too. I never saw Simon hit him. I heard it though. Simon took all the abuse he was having onto Kalum.’

‘Did you confront Simon?’

‘I did. Many times.’

‘What happened?’

‘He just laughed at me. Then one day he fell down the stairs. Like I said, he is an unlucky idiot.’

‘Bit of coincident he fell.’

‘Yeah. But that’s what happened.’

‘So, Kalum trying to remember Simon must be very upsetting for you.’

‘It’s best he doesn’t remember that crapbag.’

‘Must have brought up some feelings of anger that you’ve buried.’

Jasper laughed out loud, ‘Nah, I dealt with that years ago. I’m at peace with that piece of crap.’

‘You dealt with it?’

‘Yes.’

Then something inside Jasper just let out.

He had been sat with a silent lawyer, being interrogated for an hour and it was finally getting to him. ‘The same day they fell down the stairs. They rushed both Kalum and Simon to the hospital. They were so focused on rushing them through to theatre, both got operated on and were both resting. I remember looking through into their room, their beds were next to each other completely identical.’ He paused and gave a short smile, ‘Identicalness, what you going to do.’

‘What did you do Jasper?’ the detective asked.

Jasper thought back to this day. He was about tall enough to see into the window. In the room, he could see both his brothers in bed, recovering after their operations.

‘I overheard doctors talking about their operations,’ Jasper said. ‘They forget about the other kid, cos you know, triplets are very rare and I was very small, so they forgot I was within ear shot.’

‘Were you not with your carer?’

‘They’d gone to get a drink, I could be trusted a lone by myself for five minutes,’ Jasper started smirk and almost wanted to laugh out loud to himself.

He remembered looking into the room staring at the machines around his brothers, them both in states of unconsciousness.

‘Kalum had more injuries and was more likely not to make it,’ Jasper shrugged. ‘Simon would pull through; he’d be okay though.’

Jasper remembered looking around to see if anyone was watching him. But no one was ever watching him.

‘It wasn’t fair that Kalum wouldn’t make it,’ Jasper said. ‘After all the crap Simon did. He was just acting out what was happening to him so I supposed I should haven’t blamed him. He was a horrible human being though.’

Jasper remembered going into the room and looking over to the beds. He remembered seeing their forms attached to the end of their beds.

‘So, you didn’t think it was fair Kalum wasn’t going to make it?’

‘That’s what the doctors said,’ Jasper said. ‘I switched the files around. Put Simon’s folder onto Kalum’s and Kalum’s on Simon’s.’

The detective looked confused, raising an eyebrow and simply asked, ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I realised Simon needed punishing and that if life wasn’t going to punish him, I would,’ Jasper said. ‘He didn’t remember anything of course. It might seem like I am bit mean with him now and that I’m the monster, but I’m just paying him back for Kalum. Kalum shouldn’t have died.’

‘So, Kalum is actually Simon. Is that why you made him take the responsibility of the shooting?’

‘He should be in prison anyway he murdered Kalum. He pushed him.’

‘Did you ever tell Kalum he was Simon.’

Jasper snorted, ‘Why would I do that?’ he looked away. ‘I loved Kalum, Simon took him away so Simon has to suffer. That’s it.’