We sped quickly through the streets towards Johnson and Son Rentals. It was one of those rather plain and unassuming businesses that looked like it could just fold up and disappear without anyone being the wiser. The building sat by itself at the top of a hill, surrounded by its fleet of rental vehicles. Most were white delivery vans similar to the one following Haruto, but there were a few plain sedans and a truck or two.
Fletcher parked by the glass windows which looked in on the lobby with its drab carpet, ancient-looking coffee maker, and beige desk imprisoning a man who seemed about ready to keel over and die of boredom.
A bell chimed over our heads, as we stepped into the room. The man behind the counter barely glanced up at the sound, and it wasn’t until I was standing right in front of him with my hand on the desk that he finally drew himself upright and blinked at me.
“Can I help you?” he sighed.
Fletcher and I showed him our badges, and then I took the registration page from Martin’s file out of my pocket and placed it on the desk between us. The man, one half of Johnson and Son presumably, glanced them both over but didn’t change his expression. “We need to know who you rented these two vehicles to.”
“Why?” Johnson had the laconic look of a retail zombie who would be as unhelpful as conceivably possible.
“Because they attacked us,” I said, hoping to get some kind of reaction out of him.
But he just blinked again. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to give out that information. I’ll get my dad.” He swivelled his chair away from the desk, and hopped off, slouching over to the door labelled ‘Office.’ He poked his head inside. “Dad, do you want to talk to these cops?”
“Cops?” an older man yelped from within. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I just did,” Johnson Jr mumbled. He shut the door and returned to his stool, propping himself up against the counter again. “He’ll be right with you.” He then proceeded to forget we were there.
I glanced at Fletcher and raised an eyebrow. A few seconds later, the office door banged open, and a portly man in an ugly brown suit stepped out, his face flushed. A slick, too-wide smile spread across his lips when he saw us standing there, and he practically bounded across the short space between us to shake my hand, pumping my arm up and down far too many times for my liking.
“Inspectors, what can I do for you?” he boomed. I instantly did not trust him.
Fletcher pulled her hand back with a grimace and shook it out. “We need to know who rented these,” I said and slid the paper towards him.
Johnson Sr’s eyes flicked rapidly across the page. “Of course, of course. Might I ask what for? I certainly hope none of my vehicles is caught up in something nefarious.”
Who used the word nefarious? “Do you think we’d be asking if they weren’t?” I said.
That slick smile faltered, knocked off balance, but he pasted it back on a second later, letting out a strained chuckle. “I’m terribly sorry. Please, give me just one second to check our files.”
He shooed his son away from the computer and settling himself onto the stool, tapping a couple of buttons to wake the old dinosaur up. I leaned my elbow against the counter as I waited. The device was from the nineties and took an age and a day to boot up. When the screen finally burst to life, Johnson Sr rooted around for his records file. Clearly, he wasn’t overly adept with technology. He used two fingers to type the licence plate numbers into the search bar while his son looked on unhelpfully. I wanted to reach across the counter and rip the keyboard away from him.
“Alright, here we go,” Johnson Sr drawled. “Looks like both vehicles were rented by the same account a week apart.”
“What’s the name on the account?” I asked, perking up. Finally, we were getting somewhere.
He clicked the mouse a couple of times. “Let’s see… Allraise Ventures.”
The name meant nothing to me, and Fletcher shook her head when I glanced at her. “Do you remember who came in to make the reservation?” I asked.
“Why would I be able to do that? That was the beginning of the month. I don’t remember the customer who was in here this morning.”
I could feel a headache brewing behind my left eye. “What about CCTV footage?”
“Nope.”
I waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I dug my fingernails into my palm and took a deep breath. “What do you mean, nope?”
“We don’t have CCTV footage,” Johnson Sr elaborated rather reluctantly, I thought.
“Why not?” Fletcher asked. “Aren’t you worried about theft?”
Johnson Sr shrugged. “Not really.”
That seemed like all the information we were going to drag out of him on that account, so I switched topics. “We’ll need all the information you have on file for Allraise Ventures.”
“Sure. Sure. I can do that.” Johnson Sr’s thick eyebrows folded downwards as he fought to remember how to print the information on the screen. He glanced at his son, but the younger man was too busy looking at his phone to be of any help. He found the correct button, and the equally ancient printer in the corner dragged itself to life. It coughed, sounding about ready to shake itself to pieces, and spat out a couple of papers that Johnson Sr gathered, taking his sweet time passing it over the counter to me.
“Thanks,” I said and gave him my card in exchange. “Call if these people come to rent anything else.”
Johnson Sr nodded that he would, bid us a cheery goodbye, and disappeared back in his office. His son replaced him on the stool before the computer, though he couldn’t be bothered to look up at as.
Fletcher and I retreated to her car to look over the papers. The address was in Edinburgh,
