Parallel lines marred the surface of the poster, just above thetape, where the ink had flaked away. Hard to see, because of the flame-lit beach, but definitely there.
Wasn’t easy, what with the blue nitrile gloves and everything, but after a bit of fiddling, he peeled the Sellotape away from the wallpaper again, slipped a finger under the poster’s edge, and eased the other side off too.
Most of Miss Bikini-Pop-Star’s right leg curved out from the wall, revealing a photo hidden underneath. Six by four – the kind you could get printed out on a self-service machine at most supermarkets.
It was Charles MacGarioch and a young woman, the pair of them posing for a selfie on the dodgems at some travelling funfair. Can’t have been the permanent one, down the beach, because there were trees off to one side and what looked like a big out-of-focus stripy Union Jack thing in the background.
Charles was grinning away as she planted a duck’s-arse-pout kiss on his cheek. They were much the same age, both with a smattering of plukes about the forehead, only while he was pale as cheap vanilla ice cream, she was a rich salted caramel, with long wavy black hair, a button nose, and disco eye make-up.
The photo was held in place with Blu Tack, rather than tape, and when Logan popped it free an acne rash of little greasy spots marked the wallpaper underneath. As if it’d been taken down many times, then hidden away again.
Logan smoothed Miss Bikini-Pop-Star’s poster back into place, then turned the photo over.
‘CHARLIE&KEIRA4EVA!’ and a love heart with an arrow through it.
He frowned at the photo again.
So, this was the mysterious Keira.
Seemed like an odd romantic partner for someone who’d just carried out a horrific, racially motivated attack.
Oh for God’s sake. So that’s what his granny meant – ‘they all look alike’ – she was being a rancid racist shiteflap.
Might be a motive? Charles falls in love; his racist nan throws a bucket of cold water over it; he breaks up with Keira; they fight, things are said; Charles lashes out and gets a sort of twisted revenge-by-proxy at the Balmain House Hotel...?
Made sense, in a teenaged-boys-are-sodding-insane kind of way. Worth having a word with her, anyway.
But as Keira wasn’t on the list of known associates, they’d have to find out who she was first.
Logan pulled out his phone and took a snap of the photograph, then slipped the original into a small evidence bag.
Right, time to get out of here.
He stepped back through into the living room, where the property-attic-auction bollocks had been replaced by a house-makeover reality thing, featuring a glamorous American couple with hard hats and sledgehammers, whacking the crap out of a partition wall.
A voiceover accompanied the footage – woman’s voice, spiced with the crayfish vowels of the deep south.‘...and if there’s one thing we’ve learned from doinggazillionsof these projects, it’s: don’t count yourcockroachestill they’ve hatched...’
Logan thumped the bedroom door shut, a little louder than was strictly necessary. ‘Mrs MacGarioch, this girl you didn’t approve of, the one who was leading Charles astray. I need her surname.’
Because it was worth another try, while he was here.
Onscreen, the woman’s sledgehammer battered through a rusty old pipe, and a deluge of bugs cascaded into the room – screams ringing out as both presenters danced away from the skittering waterfall in a barrage of swear-concealing bleeps.
Victoria MacGarioch smiled at the telly, clearly enjoying the cockroach rodeo. ‘What?’
‘Charles’s girlfriend: Keira, what was her last name?’
‘Told you: don’t know, do I.’ She shifted in her armchair, as if those bugs were crawling up her spine. ‘Something ethnic.’ Then grabbed the remote and cranked up the volume, not looking at him even once.
A man’s voice, dripping with Mom’s apple pie and non-existent gun control boomed out of the TV, loud enough to be physically painful:‘I mean, we seen roaches before, but nothing likethis. It’s like a gosh-darn creepy-crawlyseaof the things!’
‘“Ethnic” in what way?’
No reply.
‘Mrs MacGarioch?’
The couple on the telly scrambled from the room, then out of the house. Bursting through the front door to jiggle about in the front yard, brushing real and imagined bugs from their clothes. High-stepping over a ‘TRUMP PENCE 2020 ~ KEEP AMERICA GREAT!’ lawn sign, while a grubby Stars-and-Stripes flew overhead.
