Discworld 39 - Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

  Sybil nodded sadly, and then sniffed and said, “Can you smell smoke?”

  Willikins, who had been standing patiently, said, “Corporal Nobbs and his, ahem, young … lady wandered off into the shrubbery with Young Sam, your ladyship. Sergeant Detritus accompanied them with what I now believe to be called . . .” Willikins savored the word like a toffee, “surreptition.”

  This last fact was testified to by the shrubbery itself, because no shrubbery, however large, could hide the fact that a troll had just walked through it.

  There was a small, neat fire burning in the shrubbery, watched passively by Detritus and Young Sam, and nervously by Corporal Nobbs, who was watching his new young lady cooking something on a spit.

  “Oh, she’s cooking snails,” said Sybil, with every sign of approval. “What a provident young lady.”

  “Snails?” said Vimes, shocked.

  “Quite traditional in these parts, as a matter of fact,” said Sybil. “My father and his chums used to cook them up sometimes after a drinking session. Very wholesome, and full of vitamins and minerals, or so I understand. Apparently if you feed them on garlic they taste of garlic.”

  Vimes shrugged. “I suppose that has to be better than them tasting of snails.”

  Sybil pulled Sam off to one side and said quietly, “I think the goblin girl is the one that they call Shine of the Rainbow. Felicity says she’s very smart.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’ll get anywhere with Nobby,” said Vimes. “He’s carrying a torch for Verity Pushpram. You know, the fishmonger?”

  Sybil whispered, “She got engaged last month, Sam. To a lad who’s building up his own fishing fleet.” They stared through the leaves and tiptoed away.

  “But she’s a goblin!” said Vimes, out of his depth.

  “And he is Nobby Nobbs, Sam. And she is quite attractive in a goblin sort of way, don’t you think? And to be honest, I’m not sure that even Nobby’s old mother knows what species her son is. Frankly, Sam, it’s not our business.”

  “But what if Young Sam eats snails?”

  “Sam, given what he’s already eaten in his short life I wouldn’t worry, if I was you. I expect the girl knows what she’s doing, they generally do, Sam, believe me. Besides, this is limestone country and there’s nothing poisonous for the snails to eat. Don’t worry, Sam!”

  “Yes, but how will—”

  “Don’t worry, Sam!”

  “Yes, but I mean—”

  “Don’t worry, Sam! There’s a troll and a dwarf in Lobbin Clout that have set up home together, so I’ve heard. Good for them, I say, it’s their business and definitely not ours.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Sam!”

  During the afternoon Sam Vimes worried. He wrote dispatches and walked up to the new tower to send them. Goblins were sitting around the tower now, staring at it. He tapped one of them on the shoulder, handed it the messages and watched it climb the tower as if it were horizontal. A couple of minutes later it came down with a smudged confirmation-of-sending slip, which it handed to him along with several other messages before sitting down to stare at the tower again.

  He thought: you have lived your life in and around a cave in a hill and now here is this magical thing that sends words, right on your doorstep. That’s got to command respect! Then he opened the two messages that had arrived for him, carefully folded up the paper and walked back down the hill, breathing carefully and taking care not to punch the air and whoop.

  When Vimes reached the cottage of the woman who, to Young Sam, would forever be the poo lady, he stopped to hear the music. It came and went, there were false starts, and then the world revolved as liquid sound called out of the window. Only then did he dare to knock at the door.

  Half an hour later, walking with the measured gait of the career copper, he proceeded to the lockup. Jethro Jefferson was sitting on a stool outside. He was wearing a badge. Feeney was learning fast. The constabulary of the Waterside owned precisely one badge, made of pot metal, and so, pinned to the shirt of the blacksmith was a carefully cut-out cardboard circle with, inscribed in painstaking handwriting, the words “Constable Jefferson works for me. Be told! Signed: Chief Constable Upshot.”

  There was a second, empty stool by the blacksmith, reflecting the doubling of the staff. Vimes sat down with a grunt. “How do you like being a copper, Mr. Jefferson?”

  “If you’re looking for Feeney, commander, he’s on his lunch break. And since you ask, I can’t say coppering sits very well with me, but maybe it’s the kind of thing that grows on you. Besides, the smithy is a bit quiet right now, and so’s the crime.” The blacksmith grinned. “No one wants me chasing them. I hear things are happening, right?”

  Vimes nodded. “When you see Feeney, tell him that the Quirm constabulary has picked up two men who apparently volunteered the information that they had shanghaied you, amongst other misdemeanors, and it seems they have a whole lot of other information that they are desperate to tell us in exchange for a certain amount of clemency.”

  Jefferson growled. “Give me five minutes with ’em and I’ll show ’em what clemency is.”

  “You’re a copper now, Jethro, so you don’t have to think like that,” said Vimes cheerfully. “Besides, the balls are all lining up.”

  Jefferson gave a hollow laugh, laden with malice, “I’d line their balls up for them … and just you see how far apart. I was a kid when the first lot were taken and that bloody Rust kid was there all right, yes indeed, urging everybody on and laughing at them poor goblins. And when I ran out into the road to try and stop it, some of his chums gave me a right seeing to. That was just after my dad died. I was a bit innocent in those days, thought that some people were better than me, tipped me hat to gentry and so on, and then I took over the forge and if that don’t kill you it makes you strong.”

  And he winked, and Vimes thought, you’ll do. You’ll probably do. You’ve got the fire.

  Vimes patted his shirt pocket and heard the reassuring rustle of paper. He was rather proud of the note at the end of the clacks message, which was a personal one from the Commandant in Quirm. It read, “When they heard that you were on the case, Sam, they were so chatty that we used up two pencils!”

  And then Sam Vimes went to the pub just as the men were coming in and sat in the corner nursing a pint of the beetroot juice with a touch of chilli, to help down a snack consisting of one pickled egg and one pickled onion nestling in a packet of crisps. Vimes did not know very much about gastronomy, but he knew what he liked. And, as he sat there, he saw people talking to one another and looking at him, and then one of them walked slowly over, holding his hat in front of him in both hands as if in penitence. “Name of Hasty, sir, William Hasty. Thatcher by trade, sir.”

  Vimes moved his legs to make room and said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hasty. What can I do for you?”

  Mr. Hasty looked around at his fellows, and got that mixed assortment of waves and hoarse whispers that adds up to “Get on with it!” Reluctantly he turned back to Vimes, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, sir, yes, of course we knew about the goblins and no one liked it much. I mean they’re a bloody nuisance if you forget to lock your chicken coop and suchlike, but we didn’t like what was done, because it wasn’t … I mean, wasn’t right, not done like that, and some of us said we would suffer for it, come the finish, because if they could do that to goblins then what might they think they could do to real people, and some said real or not, it wasn’t right! We’re just ordinary people, sir, tenants and similar, not big, not strong, not important, so who would listen to the likes of us? I mean, what could we have done?”

  Heads leaned a little forward, breaths were held, and Vimes chewed the very last vinegary piece of crisp. Then he said, directing his gaze to the ceiling, “You’ve all got weapons. Every man jack of you. Huge, dange
rous, deadly weapons. You could have done something. You could have done anything. You could have done everything. But you didn’t, and I’m not sure but that in your shoes I might not have done anything, either. Yes?”

  Hasty had held up a hand. “I’m sure we’re sorry, sir, but we don’t have weapons.”

  “Oh, dear me. Look around. One of the things that you could have done was think. It’s been a long day, gentlemen, it’s been a long week. Just remember, that’s all. Remember for next time.”

  In silence, Vimes walked across to Jiminy at the bar, noticing above the man a patch on the wall showing gleaming paint on the plaster. For a moment Vimes’s memory filled that space with a goblin’s head. Another little triumph.

  “Jiminy, these gentlemen are drinking at my expense for the rest of the evening. See they get home okay even if wheelbarrows have to be deployed. I’ll send Willikins down to settle with you in the morning.”

  Only the sound of his boots broke the silence as he walked to the pub door and closed it gently behind him. Fifty yards up the road he smiled when he heard the cheering start.

  The Roberta E. Biscuit was, unlike the Wonderful Fanny, a boat that strutted its stuff. It looked like a Hogswatch decoration, and on one deck a small band was trying to play as hard as a large band. Waiting on the quayside, though, was a man wearing a hat that the captain of any fleet would desire. “Welcome aboard, your grace, and of course your ladyship. I’m Captain O’Farrell, master of the Roberta.” Then he looked down at Young Sam and said, “Want to take a turn at the wheel, young shaver? That shall be arranged! And I bet your daddy would like a turn, too.” The captain shook Vimes’s hand industriously, saying, “Captain Sillitoe had nothing but good things to say about you, sir, nothing but good things indeed! And he hopes to see you again some day. But in the meantime, it’s my duty, sir, to make you King!”

  The thoughts of Sam Vimes collided in their rush to get through first. Something about the word “king” was getting in the way.

  Still smiling, the captain said, “That is to say King of the River, sir, a little honor that we bestow on those heroes who have taken on Old Treachery and bested him! Allow me to present you with this gold-ish medal, sir. It’s a small token, but show it to any captain on the river and you’ll be carried for free, sir, from the mountains to the sea if you so desire!”

  Whipped to a frenzy by the oration, the crowd burst into loud applause and the band struck up with the old classic “Surprised, Aren’t You?” and bouquets of flowers were hurled into the air, and then picked up again carefully, because waste not, want not. And the band played and the wheels turned and the water was whisked into a foam as the Vimes family went down the river for a wonderful holiday.

  Young Sam was allowed to stay up to see the dancing girls, although he didn’t see the point. Vimes, however, did. And there was a conjuror and all the other entertainment people subject themselves to in the name of fun, although he did laugh a bit when the conjuror picked his pocket in order to put in the ace of spades and found himself holding the knife that Sam had brought along just in case. When you aren’t expecting it, that’s when you should expect it!

  And the conjuror had not expected it and looked goggle-eyed at Vimes until he said, “Oh my, you’re him, aren’t you? Commander Vimes himself!” And to Vimes’s horror, he turned to the crowd with, “A big hand, please, ladies and gentlemen, for the hero of the Wonderful Fanny!”

  In the end Vimes had to take a bow, which meant obviously that Young Sam took a bow next to him, causing much moistening of female eyes throughout the restaurant. And then the barman, who apparently didn’t know the score, created on the spot the “Sam Vimes,” which Sam later pretended to be embarrassed about when it became part of the repertoire in every drinking establishment on the Plains, apart from, of course, those where the clientele tended to open their bottles with their teeth.* In fact, he was so overcome by the honor that he actually drank one of the cocktails and another afterward as well, on the basis that Sybil couldn’t really object in the circumstances. Then he sat signing beer mats and pieces of paper and chatting to people rather more loudly than he normally chatted until even the barman decided to call it a day and Sybil towed her tipsy husband to bed.

  And on the way to their suite he distinctly overheard one lady say to another in passing, “Who’s the new barman? Never seen him on this run before . . .”

  The Roberta E. Biscuit plowed on into the night, the water leaving a temporary white trail behind her ample stern. One ox had been led into the stable in the scuppers, leaving the other one to maintain some sensible headway while the pleasure cruise paddled toward the morning. Everyone except the pilot and the lookout was sleeping, drunk or otherwise prone. The barman was nowhere to be seen; barmen come and go, after all—whoever notices the barman? And in the corridor of staterooms a figure waited in the shadows, listening. It listened for whispers, creaks and snores building up.

  There was a snore, oh yes! The shadow drifted along the dark corridor, the occasional betraying creak lost among the symphony of sounds made by any wooden boat under way. There was a door. There was a lock. There was a gentle exploration; being the kind that portrays cunning and strength rather than actually having them. There was a lockpick, a delicate movement of hinges, and the same movement again as the door was gently pushed shut from the inside. There was a smile so unpleasant that it could almost be seen in the dark, especially by the dark-assisted eye, and so there was a scream, instantly cut short—

  “Let me tell you how this is going to be,” said Sam Vimes, as urgent sounds suddenly filled the corridor. He leaned over the body spreadeagled on the floor. “You will be humanely handcuffed for the rest of this voyage, and you will be watched carefully by my valet Willikins, who, apart from making a really good cocktail, is also not burdened by being a policeman.” He squeezed a little harder and went on in a conversational tone, “Every now and again I have to sack a decent copper for police brutality, and I do sack them, you may be sure of that, for doing what the average member of the public might do if they were brave enough and if they had seen the dying child, or the remains of the old woman. They would do it to restore in their mind the balance of terror.” Vimes squeezed again. “Often the law treats them gently, if it worries about them at all, but a copper, now, he’s a lawman—certainly if he works for me—and that means his job stops at the arrest, Mr. Stratford. So what’s stopping me from squeezing the life out of a murderer who has broken into the room he thought would hold my little boy, with, oh dear me, such a lot of little knives? Why will I squeeze him only to unconsciousness, while despising myself for every fragment of breath I begrudge him? I’ll tell you, mister, that what stands between you and sudden death right now is the law you don’t acknowledge. And now I’m going to let you go, just in case you die on me, and I couldn’t have that. However, I suggest you don’t try and make a run for it, because Willikins is not bound by the same covenant as I am, and he is also quite merciless and very fond of Young Sam, who’s sleeping with his mother, I’m glad to say. Understand? You picked the single room, didn’t you, where the little boy would be. It’s lucky for you that I’m a bastard, Mr. Stratford, because if you’d broken into the stateroom, where my wife, although I never dare tell her so, is snoring at least as loud as any man, you would have found that she has at her command a considerable amount of weaponry and, knowing the temper of the Ramkins, she would have quite probably done things to you that would make Willikins say ‘Whoa, that’s going a bit too far.’ What they have they keep, Mr. Stratford.”

  Vimes momentarily changed his grip. “And you must think I’m a bloody fool. Some bloke they reckoned was a great thinker once said, ‘Know yourself.’ Well, I know myself, Mr. Stratford, I’m ashamed to say, right down to the depths, and because of that I know you, like I know my own face in the shaving mirror. You’re just a bully who found it easier and easier and decided that everybody els
e wasn’t really a real person, not like you, and when you know that, there’s no crime too big, is there? No crime you won’t do. You might reflect that, while you’re going to hang, I’m quite certain that Lord Rust, your boss, will in all probability walk free. Did you really think he’d protect you?”

  The prostrate Stratford mumbled something.

  “Sorry, sir, didn’t quite catch that?”

  “King’s evidence!” Stratford blurted out.

  Vimes shook his head, even if Stratford couldn’t see it. “Mr. Stratford, you’re going to hang, whatever you say. I’m not going to bargain with you. You must surely realize that you have nothing to bargain with. It’s that simple.”

  On the floor Stratford growled, “Damn him! I’ll tell you anyway! I hate the smarmy bugger! What do you want me to say?”

  It was a good job that he couldn’t see Vimes’s face, and Vimes merely said, “However, I’m sure that Lord Vetinari will be very happy to hear anything that you have to say, sir. He’s of a mercurial nature and I’m sure there is hanging or hanging.”

  Slumped on the floor and wheezing, Stratford said, “Everyone had that bloody cocktail, I saw them! You had three, and everybody says you’re a lush!”

  There was laughter as the door came open, letting in a little light. “His grace had what you might call the Virgin Sam Vimes,” said Willikins, “no offense meant to the commander: ginger and chilli, a dash of cucumber juice and a lot of coconut milk.”

  “And very tasty,” said Vimes. “Take him away, Willikins, will you, and if he tries anything you know what to do … you were born knowing what to do.”

  For a moment Willikins touched his forelock and then said, “Thank you, commander, I appreciate the compliment.”