Pfff...
He opened the window, leaned on the sill, and peered out.
There was the trampoline, two storeys below, with a half a dozen little kids boinging up and down on it.
God knew how Charles MacGarioch managed to make it all the way from here. And, OK, the ‘second floor’ didn’tsoundvery high, but the ground was a long, long,longway down.
Splat.
Logan plonked himself on the edge of Charles’s bed, looking around at the posters and children’s books. No adult books. Not meaning ‘dirty’ books – doubt his granny would approve of anything racier than a Catherine Cookson – but books for grown-ups. These were all for kids, and teenagers.
Mind you, MacGarioch was only nineteen.
Hell of an age to kill someone.
Maybe—
Ading-buzzsounded from Logan’s pocket, and when he pulled his phone out, ‘IT’STUFTALICIOUS!’ glowed in the middle of the screen. The little sod had done something to his phone again.
Checked With Forensic IT · STOP
Not Gained Access To Computer Yet · STOP
Have Asked Them Nicely To Be Less Pants · STOP
Great. So much for a ‘pineapple suppository’.
Ding-buzz.
TUFTY-DOODLE-DOOOOO!:
Press Release On Search Underway · STOP
Sweeny May Be Having Nervous Breakdown · STOP
Tayside Say Drone Operator Ill With Diseases · STOP
Oh, for goodness’ sake...
Logan flopped back on Charles’s bed, with his feet still on the floor.
What were they supposed to do now?
No drone, no forensic IT, and no idea where Charles MacGarioch had disappeared to.
...
It was odd, seeing the room from this angle. The video game posters were OK, but there was somethingslightlyobscene about the female popstars – looming over him in their bikinis and/or underwear.
One, near the head of the bed, was particularly pneumatic: in her early twenties; blonde hair; and a bikini that was more straps than fabric, festooned with sequins. She was kneeling on a beach, while a lake of fire burned behind her. Oiled-up and pouting. Coming off as ‘creepy and predatory’ when she’d probably been aiming for ‘sultry and alluring’.
Maybe Charles MacGariochlikedthat kind of thing, though?
She’d been Sellotaped to the wallpaper – like all the other posters in here – but Miss Bikini-Pop-Star must’ve been there a while, because the tape on the corner nearest the pillows had curled away from the wall a bit.
Lying there, half on the bed, Logan reached up and smoothed it back into place.
Hmm...
