Chapter 241: An Extremely Petty Public Service

By breakfast, somebody had printed my face on a notice telling me to stay away from the food I’d helped rescue. Nessa held it beside her truck while the neighbouring vendors gathered around, and the photograph had so few pixels that even Lukas struggled to defend the likeness.

Bridget turned the page upside down and said she preferred me in person, which was encouraging until she compared the photograph to a blocked drain. "It might help the artist, but I don’t think being ugly in two directions will improve my chances with the inspection office," I said while Nessa passed me the closure notice.

The boar man who sold soup and the feathered woman beside him weren’t interested in jokes. They wanted their stalls open, and they were afraid that every time we annoyed Renn he would find another reason to take something they couldn’t afford to replace.

I’d rehearsed a lovely speech about being ungrateful, then noticed the soup seller packing stock he couldn’t sell tomorrow. Suddenly delivering it felt about as clever as biting the sign, so I asked Bridget where Renn ate breakfast and whether his table was flammable.

[System: Take the fight to his doorstep, mate; these poor buggers sell soup, and you’ve got them paying the entry fee to Australia’s Shittest Action Movie.]

We’ll ruin his morning somewhere insured, provided you stop acting like the designated driver when you’re a pissed koala with no licence. We moved away from the stalls while Lukas bought a pastry large enough to count as equipment.

Lyra called with a link between the inspection notices and auction slips. They used different company names but the same payment office and contact number, giving Rook a useful lead without proving that Renn personally ordered every false form.

Cherry added a photograph to the message thread from a casino regular named Orin, an older badger man whose blue-striped delivery van had disappeared after collection. He’d paid several release charges before somebody told him he had already collected it three days earlier, which was an impressive event for him to have forgotten.

"Ask whether he still has the records and whether he can meet us somewhere away from the depot gate," I said. Bridget’s driver took us to the street opposite while Cherry arranged the meeting, and Lukas finished his pastry before announcing that he was ready for serious work.

Orin arrived with his receipts sorted inside a plastic folder and a photograph of his daughter beside the van. They had celebrated ten years in business only a month earlier, and she was now using her own car for deliveries while its suspension suffered for someone else’s theft.

"I don’t need you to punish anybody for me, because I need the vehicle back before we lose another week’s customers," he told us. I recognised the effort he’d put into keeping every document tidy, having spent enough years believing a complete folder should make people behave reasonably.

"Keep the originals with you and send copies to Rook, because we’re going to need more than their claim that you forgot driving home," I said. Bridget asked for the van’s identifying marks while I studied the dent above its rear wheel in the photograph.

[System: That blue stripe’s through the fence, champ, so take a picture before you start announcing yourself, because being right’s more useful when someone else can see it.]

I’m trying to look threatening through the fence, but yes, apparently today’s criminal mastermind requires photographic homework first. Two insulated cabinets stood under a loading canopy, their blue triangles matching the photograph Bridget had shown me at the lounge.

She raised her phone but said the serial numbers still mattered because several ordinary models used the same casing. Lukas offered to get above the canopy, and I asked him to do it without announcing another safety demonstration to the men carrying batons.

He climbed the neighbouring building and kept his phone pointed at the yard instead of himself. I moved towards the fence as mist, following its sheltered base until I could see the loading bay and the new equipment placed beside it.

Two industrial fans waited on wheeled frames, apparently because killing me now required the sort of equipment people hired to dry flooded carpet. One guard watched the workers while the other watched the ground, paying particular attention to the thin red haze that had begun slipping along it.

I withdrew behind a parked van before he could be certain what he’d seen. "They’ve watched the videos, and somebody has decided my face belongs in a ventilation system," I told Lukas after forming beside him again.

[System: Check for a switch before you go through, mate; those fans are big enough to turn your dramatic entrance into a very unpleasant exit.]

I wasn’t planning to volunteer for industrial cleaning, but I’m pleased you’ve noticed the difference between bravery and a suction problem. Bridget got out of the car when I explained the setup, looking towards a side office where a receptionist was taking deliveries.

Bridget asked her driver to keep the car facing the street rather than parking nose-first against the fence. He moved without questioning her, leaving a clear route for anyone who needed to leave quickly.

"How often do your shopping trips need an escape route?" I asked her while Lukas checked the side gate. She said most shops offered refunds, then asked whether I always needed rescuing before a date. I decided mentioning the warm car seat would damage my case.

While we were watching the fans, Orin crossed the road with his folder held against his chest. He’d spotted the stripe on his van and apparently decided that seeing it with his own eyes meant the argument could finally end.

The patched-jacket worker spoke to him through the gate before a guard opened it and invited him inside. Orin followed with visible relief, but the guard took his folder, locked the gate and shoved him towards the office when he tried to look back.

Lukas lowered his phone while Bridget headed for the other entrance, saying she would keep the office staff occupied. I left the parked van as Orin reached for his folder again, just in time to see the guard raise a baton between him and the only open door.