3

“What time did you say the Bank was robbed?”

“Between 1:30 am and 5 am,” Nairo replied as they walked through a gabble of counter Gnomes who had turned up to work with nothing to count and a whole lot of complaints to lodge.

“Aint a single clue in that vault, so the clue has to be out here,” Ridley said as he patted down his long coat looking for a smoke.

Nairo dodged a stricken Pixie who was sitting cradling its head in its hands and muttering to itself. She stopped to look at the worrying sight but Ridley kept on striding forwards.

“Why's that?” Nairo asked him as she trotted to catch up.

“Coz there wasn’t a single clue inside the vault and there's always clues. In thousands of years criminals ain’t come up with the perfect crime. If they had they'd be doing it all the time. Right?”

“Right.”

“So if the clue ain't in there, it must be out here, right?”

“Right,” Nairo agreed, “So which way?”

“Right. No left.”

Ridley hopped off the pavement, into the seething stream of bodies in the early morning up town rush. Peddlers, commuters, and commuting peddlers overflowed from the pavement onto the cobbled roads. Ridley slipped in and out of the crush, weaving his way with the experienced roll of the shoulder any self respecting city dweller should have. Sergeant Nairo found this wholly unnecessary as she was given the same berth as a shark in a school of fish. The crowd widened around her, a few nodded, most kept their back hunched and their speed inconspicuous. Ridley posted up on a corner by a lamppost and surveyed the streets around him.

“Earthquakes in Ling! Thousands of refugees pouring into the city! Read all about it! Mayor Pleasently facing back bench, front bench, and opposition bench revolts as food shortages worsen!” A young, grubby faced boy in a shabby green coat and matching hat squawked while brandishing a crumpled newspaper. “Hey mister, only a copper piece!”

“No thanks. I prefer to get my lies face to face,” Ridley responded, shooing the youth away. “I’m old school like that.”

The boy looked around and then sidled closer to Ridley.

“I got a line on some fresh produce coming into town. Green and crispy. Might even be some carrots that ain’t gone brown yet,” he whispered.

“I bet the only thing green and crispy are the insects it's infested with. Get lost, kid.”

The youth opened his mouth to curse at Ridley when he saw Nairo approaching. He tugged his hat at her and melted away into the crowd.

“When was the last time anyone saw the Diamond?” Ridley asked.

“It was placed in the vault by the bank manager at 1:30 am.” Nairo said as she danced around an old Gnome matron who was carrying another Gnome on her head in a basket.

“So the only thing open would have been Royle Cafe.” Ridley traced the line of sight down an alleyway, and proceeded to slip away from the mainstream of the populace. Nairo followed curiously.

“We have already canvassed this entire area, questioned every vendor and beggar, they saw nothing, and I'm reasonably sure only half were lying.”

“Better to ask one person the right question than a whole bunch of people the wrong ones,” Ridley replied over his shoulder as he weaved his way through the criss-crossing alleys of the city. Every now and again he would kick the odd lump of rotting trash, or sniff at a questionable corner.

“Err... are you ok?” Nairo asked, concern in her voice.

Ridley puffed his smoke and scratched his stubbly chin. He ignored Nairo and continued to splash through the murky puddles, and other questionable liquids, his coat flapping in the cold morning wind. Finally he stopped and began to stare at a pile of festering fish heads and other assorted abandoned foodstuffs. The staring contest went on for a good few minutes before the pile began to wriggle. First she thought they were rats, then one particular large rat, then after a few seconds of shifting, Nairo found herself staring at a face made out of garbage. A long hooked nose protruded the trash heap, with skin so crusty she could not fathom what colour it had been, or even what it was currently. The lips on the face peeled back, or at least the place she assumed it's lips would be, and revealed a row of teeth so decayed they wiggled when it spoke.

“Ridleeeeeeeyyyyy!” the trash face squealed, it wriggled until its beard came loose, bin juice oozing from every bristle.

“You're a hard... thing to find these days, Oz,” Ridley said, taking a few surreptitious steps back from the seeping puddle of ooze.

The trash creature narrowed its wild, jaundice stricken eyes at Ridley.

“No,” it spat irritably.

“You dunno what I'm gonna say, Oz.”

“No!”

“You owe me one,” Ridley said as he stooped down and wagged a finger in the trash creature's face.

“You owe me one!” Oz squealed indignantly, a decayed limb burst out of the trash pile and a bony fist shook at Ridley.

“How’d you figure that!?” Ridley snapped.

“That debacle with that herd of cows in the King’s Square!” The fist wagged harder.

“No no, coz remember I got you out of that jam after.”

“Which jam?”

“When you got tossed into the bin carriage and nearly got your mangy bones incinerated!”

“That's not a favour! That's civic duty,” Oz said, waving a dismissive claw and splashing garbage juice across the cobbles.

“Ha, civic duty would have been to let ‘em burn you,” Ridley muttered. “Almost did. It was only the thought of the smell afterwards that stopped me.”

“How dare you!”

Nairo watched this verbal tennis match back and forth whilst she tried to breath through her mouth as much as possible.

Stolen story; please report.

“Beg pardon,” she said and cleared her throat. “I'm not sure if this is part of your interrogation strategy, but the trail grows colder while you two argue.”

Ridley flicked his dog-ended smoke and magicked another one, lighting it while muttering a curse under his breath.

“I heard that!” the trash creature cried, his crusty claw scuttling out and snatching up Ridley’s dog end, and popping it into his mouth like a mint.

“Fine! We'll call it me owing you one,” Ridley conceded, as he tapped his shabby loafer on the cobbles impatiently.

“Good. Last thing I expected this mornin' was to wake up to a PI and a lady copper at my heap!”

“Yeah, well something big has gone down…”

“A burglary in the bank district,” Nairo interjected, making sure to give the 'official' line on the situation.

“Oooooh, juicy, please tell me it was sumfin Elvish wot got nicked.”

“What makes you think it was Elvish?” Ridley said.

“Dunno. First expensive fing I could think of. Ooh, maybe those new communication scrolls they bring out every other month. It's all the same garbage you know, I know, I should know, get enough of ‘em in my Heaps.”

“Something was stolen that we need to get back, Mr. Oz, was it?”

“Corr, she's polite ain't she. You could learn a lesson Ridley.” Oz ignored Ridley's sullen curses and continued. “But what do you want with me? I ain't seen nuffin, heard nuffin, said nuffin, stole nuffin, planned nuffin, done nuffin, and know nuffin.”

“We just need to ask you a few questions Mr. Oz,” Nairo said, her little notepad already in her hand with a matching miniature pencil, ready to begin.

“You still pilfering fish heads from the Heap outside Monterry's fish mongers?” Ridley asked.

“Yessir. S’not illegal, anything thrown into the Heap is public domain,” Oz replied, narrowing his beady, crusted up eyes.

“Damn, and there I was hoping to collar you for the great cod head caper. That would have been a real feather in my cap,” Ridley said, rolling his eyes.

“No need to be snarky.”

“The fishmongers don’t close until midnight, right Sarge?”

“Oh… yes I believe so.”

“And the bank was robbed at some time between 1 and 5am. Only place open at that time is The Royle Cafe, which has an uninterrupted eye sight from the Heaps outside Monterry's, right Oz?” Ridley deduced, hands stuffed in his pockets as he bounced on his heels. “And of course Oz the Bin Demon recognizes a face in every part of the city.”

“That's a fact,” the little trash monster beamed with pride as he replied. “I know all of them and they all know me!”

“But you only know scumbags and degenerates like your good self.”

“Yessir.” The note of pride had not disappeared.

“So what would a filthy degenerate be doing in one of the swankiest parts of town at midnight, other than raiding fish bins?” Ridley leaned closer, well as close as he could bear, to Oz.

“Oh ummm... well no, you see, I didn’t see no one that night.”

“But you can't go to a place without recognising a face.” Ridley had adopted that wheedling tone of voice one uses when both parties know the truth but one is unwilling to admit to it. Oz, being a veteran of the city streets himself, opted for a tried and true method when dealing with an investigative authority: belligerence.

“Get lost with yer questions, Ridley!”

“Who'd you see, Oz.”

“I ain’t a rat!”

“No, you just eat their droppings. Who did you see crusty?”

“Shove it!”

“Oz, I'm warning you...”

“Shove it up your aged mother's...”

Ridley, who had been quietly pulling on a pair of leather gloves while they were talking, lunged into the pile and grabbed a fistful of the demon's soppy beard. Oz tried to retreat into his Heap but Ridley was quicker.

“Oii! Gerroff!”

Oz kicked and squealed as Ridley hauled him from the Heap. Extracting him was difficult, it was almost as if the trash was alive and actively wrapping itself around the demon's scrawny yellowed limbs. Nairo felt her head swim as a fresh wave of smell and squelching noises hit her. With a sucking plop sound and a fresh cascade of pus like ooze, Oz was wrenched free. Ridley grabbed an abandoned fish head with the backbone still attached and brandished it at the sopping creature.

“Don’t make this any more disgusting than it already is!” He slapped Oz across the face with the fish.

“Ahh assault! Brutality!” Oz cried, his little wet body dripped a yellow green liquid, too thick to be just water. He could not have been three feet, his entire scrawny frame was being held up by Ridley with one hand while he shook and berated Oz with the fish in the other.

“Who did ya see Oz!?” He slapped him again, this time harder and accompanied it with some more vigorous shaking.

“Enough!”

Nairo grabbed a fistful of Ridley's coat and slammed him against the wall, his arm wrenched none too gently behind his back. Oz fell to the floor with a wet squelch and he slithered back to the safety of his Heap.

“Wah! What're you doing!?” Bemusement took the steely edge that Ridley's voice usually carried and replaced it with pained confusion.

“Battery and assault with... with dead marine life,” she responded calmly. “The offices of upholding law and order do not look kindly on police brutality.”

“Since when?”

“1266, such forceful interrogation tactics were outlawed, and as a sworn official of the peace, I will not stand idly by while you brutalise a member of the public.”

Ridley squirmed against her for a few moments, then realised the woman had a grip like a lion with a haunch of zebra in its mouth, and relented.

“Ok, ok, I'm easy.”

Nairo let go of Ridley and stepped away from him as he spun around and realigned his jacket, his pride a little sorer than his shoulder. Oz snickered from within the depths of his Heap.

“Stupid horse faced pig,” he hissed at Ridley.

Nairo held up a hand to Ridley and then knelt in front of Oz's Heap.

“Mr. Oz, now you are going to deal with me, is that okay? I am Sergeant Nairo of the Valderia police and I have been tasked with a mission of the utmost importance. I'm afraid, unless you tell us what we want to know, I'm going to have to cite you for obstructing the course of justice.”

“Ooooh laa dee daa, I'm quaking in me banana peels,” he retorted nastily.

“Well you should be sir, under the better citizenry Act of 1378: Any citizen of the City’s municipalities seen to be ludicrously-slash-offensively dirty will be subjected to a mandatory hosing down and scrubbing in the HQ gaol.”

“What? Mandatory hosing?” Oz’s tone had gone from nasty to frightened.

“Don’t forget the scrubbing,” Ridley added.

“But I'm a trash demon, you can't wash me! That's... that's... speciest!” Oz yelped, his whole Heap practically quivering.

“Well do you have any documentation attesting to your official status as a trash demon,” she asked with the most pleasant of tones, familiar of the one a secretary would use when answering communication scrolls.

“Documentation? Look at me, woman! I live in a damn trash heap!”

“All I see, sir, is an isolated anti-social member of society, in desperate need of governmental intervention in order to become a reformed and healthy member of said society.” She finished with another pleasant smile.

Oz did not understand most of that sentence, but it contained all his least favourite words.

“Should have left Ridley to beat me with the fish, woulda been more humane,” he muttered glumly.

“Couldn't agree more,” Ridley said. “Now tell us who you saw before we have to get soap involved.”

Oz cringed at the word and held a hand up from his Heap in supplication.

“No soap, please, I'll tell ya.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “But you didn’t hear this from me Ridley.”

“Never do.”

“No! I'm serious this time Ridley, these is nasty people and I have to sleep out here on these streets every night, understand?”

Nairo and Ridley exchanged a look, before they both nodded their agreement.

“Was Benny Two Coats,” he said. “Saw him like four nights in a row just sitting in the cafe for hours, watching. Subtlety ain’t his strong point, everyone from here to Bakers Alley knew he was casing sumfin.”

“Benny Two Coats? One of Uncle Sam's heavies?” Ridley asked.

“Aye.”

Ridley mulled this new piece of information over in his mind before he nodded.

“You've been most helpful Oz, shame you can’t be more forthcoming. As much fun as the dramatics are, they’re bloody time consuming.” Ridley turned and began to walk back down to the main road.

“Yer Yer, PI!” he called after them. “You can shove it, Ridley! And remember you owe me one!”

“Goodbye Mr. Oz thank you for your help.”

“Ta ta Sargent.”