Truth

by Pratchett, Terry

  ‘And we were so close. So close.’ William pulled out his notebook. ‘We could have run with this. I’ve got nearly the whole thing. All I can do with it now is give it to Vimes—’

  ‘Where’s the lead?’

  William looked across the wreckage. Boddony was crouching by the smoking press, trying to see under it.

  ‘There’s not a sign of the lead!’ he said.

  ‘It’s got to be somewhere,’ said Goodmountain. ‘In my experience twenty tons of lead does not just get up and walk away.’

  ‘It must’ve melted,’ said Boddony. ‘There’s a few blobs on the floor …’

  ‘The cellar,’ said Goodmountain. ‘Give me a hand here, will you?’ He grabbed a blackened beam.

  ‘Here, I’ll help,’ said William, coming round the stricken desk. ‘It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do …’

  He got a grip on a tangle of charred wood and pulled—

  Mr Pin arose from the pit like a demon king. Smoke poured off him and he was screaming one long, incoherent scream. He rose and rose and knocked Goodmountain aside with a round-arm sweep and then his hands clamped around William’s neck and still his leap propelled him up.

  William fell backwards. He landed on the desk and felt a stab of pain as some piece of debris went through the flesh of his arm. But there was no time to think about pain that had happened. It was imminent pain that occupied all his future. The face of the creature was inches away, eyes wide and staring through him at something horrible, but his hands were tight around William’s neck.

  William would never have dreamed of using a cliché as tired as ‘vice-like grip’ but, as consciousness became a red-walled tunnel, the editor inside him said, yes, that’s what it would be like, the sheer mechanical pressures that—

  The eyes crossed. The scream stopped. The man staggered sideways, half crouched.

  As William raised his head he saw Sacharissa stepping backwards.

  The editor chittered away in his head, watching him watching her. She’d kicked the man in the … Er, You Know. It had to be the influence of those humorous vegetables. It had to be.

  And he had to get the Story.

  William rose to his feet and waved frantically at the dwarfs, who were advancing with their axes at the ready.

  ‘Wait! Wait! Look … you … er … Brother Pin …’ He winced at the pain in his arm, looked down and saw, with horror, the evil length of the spike poking through the cloth of his jacket.

  Mr Pin tried to focus on the boy grappling with his arm, but the shadows wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t certain, now, that he was still alive. Yes! That was it! He must be dead! All this smoke, people shouting, all the voices whispering in his ear, this was some kind of hell but, aha, he had a return ticket …

  He managed to straighten up. He fished the potato of the late Mr Tulip out of his shirt. He held it aloft.

  ‘G’t m’ ’tato,’ he said proudly. ‘’m all right, okay?’

  William stared at the smoke-stained, red-eyed face, with its horrible expression of triumph, and then at the shrunken vegetable on the end of its string. His grip on reality was at the moment almost as slippery as Mr Pin’s, and people showing him a potato seemed to mean only one thing.

  ‘Er … it’s not a very funny one, is it?’ he said, wincing as he tugged at the spike.

  Mr Pin’s last train of thought jumped the rails. He let go of the potato and with a movement that owed nothing to thought and everything to instinct pulled a long dagger from inside his jacket. The figure in front of him was fading into just another shadow among many now, and he lunged madly.

  William pulled the metal free, and his hand flew out in front of him—

  And that, for the moment, was everything that Mr Pin ever knew.

  The sleet hissed on a few remaining embers.

  William stared into the puzzled face as the light in the eyes went out and the attacker sagged slowly to the ground, one hand fiercely hanging on to the potato.

  ‘Oh,’ said Sacharissa distantly. ‘You spiked him …’

  Blood dripped down William’s sleeve.

  ‘I … er … I think I could do with a bandage,’ he said. Ice shouldn’t be hot, he knew, but shock was filling his veins with a burning chill. He was sweating ice.

  Sacharissa ran forward, tearing at the sleeve of her blouse.

  ‘I don’t think it’s bad,’ said William, trying to back away. ‘I just think it’s one of those … enthusiastic wounds.’

  ‘Vot has been happening here?’

  William looked at the blood on his hand and then at Otto, standing on top of a pile of rubble with an amazed look on his face and a couple of packages in his hands.

  ‘I just go avay for five minutes to buy some more acids and suddenly zer whole place … Oh dear … oh dear …’

  Goodmountain pulled a tuning fork out of his pocket and twanged it on his helmet.

  ‘Quick, lads!’ He waved the fork in the air. ‘“Oh will you come to the mission—”’

  Otto waved his hand gently as the dwarfs began to sing.

  ‘No, I am vell on top of it, thank you all the same,’ he said. ‘Ve know vot all this is about, don’t ve? It vas a mob, yes? Zere is alvays a mob, sooner or later. Zey got my friend Boris. He showed them zer black ribbon but zey just laughed and—’

  ‘I think they were after all of us,’ said William. ‘I wish I’d had a chance to ask him a few questions, even so …’

  ‘You mean like “Is this the first time you’ve strangled anyone?”’ said Boddony. ‘Or “How old are you, Mr Killer?”’

  Something started to cough.

  It seemed to be coming from the pocket of the man’s jacket.

  William looked around at the stunned dwarfs to see if anyone else had a clue about what he should do next. Then he reluctantly patted the greasy suit with extreme care and pulled out a slim, polished box.

  He opened it. A small green imp peered out of its slot.

  ‘’m?’ it said.

  ‘What? A personal Dis-organizer?’ said William. ‘A killer with a personal Dis-organizer?’

  ‘The Things To Do Today section is going to be interesting, then,’ said Boddony.

  The imp blinked at him. ‘Do you want me to reply or not?’ it said. ‘Insert Name Here requested silence, despite my range of sounds to suit any mood or occasion.’

  ‘Um … your previous owner is … previous,’ said William, looking down at the cooling Mr Pin.

  ‘You’re a new owner?’ said the imp.

  ‘Well … possibly.’

  ‘Congratulations!’ said the imp. ‘Warranty not applicable if said device is sold, hired, transferred, gifted or stolen unless in original packaging and extraneous materials which by then you will have thrown away and Part Two of the warranty card which you have lost has been filled in and sent to Thttv ggj, thhtfjhsssjk the Scors and quoting the reference number which you did not in fact make a note of. Do you want me to wipe the contents of my memory?’ It produced a cotton-wool bud and prepared to insert it into one very large ear. ‘Erase Memory Y/N?’

  ‘Your … memory …?’

  ‘Yes. Erase Memory Y/N?’

  ‘N!’ said William. ‘And now tell me what exactly it is you are remembering,’ he added.

  ‘You have to press the Recall button,’ said the imp impatiently.

  ‘And that will do what?’

  ‘A small hammer hits me on the head and I look to see what button you pressed.’

  ‘Why don’t you just, well, recall?’

  ‘Look, I don’t make the rules. You’ve got to press the button. It’s in the manual—’

  William carefully pushed the box to one side. There were several velvet bags in the dead man’s pocket. He put these on the desk, too.

  Some of the dwarfs had gone a little way down the iron ladder into the cellar. Boddony climbed back out again, looking thoughtful.

  ‘There’s a man down there,’ he said. ‘Lying in … lead.�
��

  ‘Dead?’ said William, looking carefully at the bags.

  ‘I hope so. I really hope so. You could say he made a bit of an impression. He’s a bit on the … cooked side. And there’s an arrow through his head.’

  ‘William, you realize that you are robbing a corpse?’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘Good,’ said William distantly. ‘Best time.’ He upended a bag and jewels spilled across the charred wood.

  There was a strangled noise from Goodmountain. Next to gold, jewels were a dwarf’s best friend.

  William emptied the other bags.

  ‘How much do you think this lot is worth?’ he said, when the gems stopped rolling and twinkling.

  Goodmountain had already whipped an eye glass from an inside pocket and was inspecting a few of the larger stones. ‘What? Hey? Oh, tens of thousands. Could be a hundred thousand. Could be a lot more. This one here is worth fifteen hundred, I reckon, and it’s not the best of ’em.’

  ‘He must’ve stolen them!’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘No,’ said William calmly. ‘We’d have heard about a theft this big. We hear about things. A young man would certainly have told you. Check to see if he has a wallet, will you?’

  ‘The very idea! And what—’

  ‘Check for a damn wallet, will you?’ said William. ‘This is a story. I’m going to check his legs, and I’m not looking forward to that, either. But this is a story. We can have hysterics later. Do it. Please?’

  There was a half-healed bite on the dead man’s leg. William rolled up his own trouser leg for comparison while Sacharissa, her eyes averted, pulled a brown leather wallet out of the jacket.

  ‘Any clue to who he is?’ said William, carefully measuring toothmarks with his pencil. His mind felt strangely calm. He wondered if he was actually thinking at all. It all seemed like some dream, happening in another world.

  ‘Er … there’s something done on the leather in pokerwork,’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘“Not A Very Nice Person At All”,’ she read. ‘I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?’

  ‘Someone who wasn’t a very nice person,’ said William. ‘Anything else in there?’

  ‘There’s a piece of paper with an address,’ said Sacharissa. ‘Er … I didn’t have time to tell you this, er, William. Um …’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It’s 50 Nonesuch Street. Er. Which is where those men caught me. They had a key and everything. Er … that’s your family’s house, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you want me to do with these jewels?’ said Goodmountain.

  ‘I mean, you gave me a key and everything,’ said Sacharissa nervously. ‘But there was this man in the cellar, highly inebriated, and he looked just like Lord Vetinari, and then these men turned up and knocked out Rocky and then—’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said Goodmountain, ‘but if these aren’t stolen, then I know plenty of places that’d give us top dollar, even at this time of night—’

  ‘—and of course they were most impolite but really there was nothing I could do—’

  ‘—we could do with a bit of immediate cash, is the point I’m trying to make—’

  It dawned on the girl and the dwarf that William was no longer listening. He seemed locked, blank-faced, in a little bubble of silence.

  Slowly, he pulled the Dis-organizer towards him and pressed the button marked ‘Recall’. There was a muffled ‘Ouch’.

  ‘… nyip-nyap mapnyap nyee-wheedlewheedlewheee …’

  ‘What’s that noise?’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘It’s how an imp remembers,’ said William distantly. ‘It … sort of plays its life backwards. I used to have an early version of this,’ he added.

  The noise stopped. The imp said, very apprehensively, ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I took it back to the shop because it wasn’t working properly,’ said William.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said the imp. ‘You’d be amazed at some of the terrible things people did to the Mk I. What went wrong with it?’

  ‘It got flung through a third-floor window,’ said William, ‘for being unhelpful.’

  This imp was a little brighter than most of the species. It saluted smartly.

  ‘… wheeeewheedlewheedle nyap-nyark … Testing, testing … seems okay—’

  ‘That’s Brother Pin!’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘—say something, Mr Tulip,’ and the voice became the damp growl of Sister Jennifer, ‘What’ll I say? It’s not natural, talkin’ to a —ing box. This box, Mr Tulip, may be a passport to better times. I thought we were getting the —ing money. Yes, and this’ll help us keep it … nyipnyip …’

  ‘Go forward a bit,’ William commanded.

  ‘—whee … nyip dog has got personality. Personality counts for a lot. And the legal precedents—’

  ‘That’s Slant!’ said Boddony. ‘That lawyer!’

  ‘What shall I do with the jewels?’ said Goodmountain.

  ‘… nyipnyip … I can add another five thousand dollars in jewels to your fee … nyip … I want to know who’s giving me these orders … nyip … not be stupid, either. My … clients have long memories and deep pockets …’ In its terror the imp was skipping.

  William pressed the Pause button.

  ‘Slant gave him the money,’ he said. ‘Slant was paying him. Did you hear him mention clients? You understand? This is one of the men who attacked Vetinari! And they had a key to our house?’

  ‘But we can’t just keep the money!’ said Sacharissa.

  William pressed the button again.

  ‘… nyip … they say a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on …’

  ‘Obviously, we—’ Sacharissa began.

  He pressed the button.

  ‘Wheeewheedlewheedle lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’

  He pressed the button again.

  ‘Wheeewheedlewheedle can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’

  ‘Wheeewheedlewheedle round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’

  ‘Wheeewheedle the truth has got its boots on.’

  ‘Are you all right, William?’ said Sacharissa, as he stood motionless.

  ‘Delayed shock,’ Goodmountain whispered. ‘It can take people that way.’

  ‘Mr Goodmountain,’ said William sharply, still with his back to them. ‘Did you say you could get me another press?’

  ‘I said they cost a—’

  ‘—handful of rubies, perhaps?’

  Goodmountain opened his hand. ‘Are these ours, then?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well … in the morning I could buy a dozen presses, but it’s not like buying sweets—’

  ‘I want to go to press in half an hour,’ said William. ‘Otto, I want pictures of Brother Pin’s leg. I want quotes from everyone, even Foul Ole Ron. And a picture of Wuffles, Otto. And I want a printing press!’

  ‘I told you, where could we get a printing press at this time of ni—’

  The floor shook. The heaps of rubble shifted.

  All eyes turned to the high lighted windows of the Inquirer.

  Sacharissa, who had been watching William wide-eyed, breathed so heavily that Otto groaned and averted his face and started to hum frantically.

  ‘There’s your press!’ she shouted. ‘All you have to do is get it!’

  ‘Yeah, but just stealing a—’ the dwarf began.

  ‘Borrowing,’ said William. ‘And half the jewels are yours.’

  Goodmountain’s nostrils flared. ‘Let’s just—’ he began to yell, and then said, ‘You did say half, did you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Let’s just do it, lads!’

  One of the Inquirer’s overseers knocked politely on Mr Carney’s door.

  ‘Yes, Causley? Has Dibbler turned up yet?’ said the Inquirer’s proprietor.

  ‘No, sir
, but there’s a young lady to see you. It’s that Miss Cripslock,’ said the overseer, wiping his hands on a rag.

  Carney brightened up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She’s in a bit of a state. And that de Worde fellow is with her.’

  Carney’s smile faded a little. He’d watched the fire from his window with great glee, but he had been bright enough not to step out into the street. Those dwarfs were pretty vicious, from what he’d heard, and would be bound to blame him. In fact, he hadn’t the faintest idea why the place had caught fire, but it was hardly unexpected, was it?

  ‘So … it’s time for the humble pie, is it?’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘Is it, sir?’

  ‘Send them up, will you?’

  He sat back and looked at the paper spread out on his desk. Damn that Dibbler! The odd thing was, though, that those things he wrote were like the wretched sausages he sold – you knew them for what they were, but nevertheless you kept on going to the end, and coming back for more. Making them up wasn’t as easy as it looked, either. Dibbler had the knack. He’d make up some story about some huge monster being seen in the lake in Hide Park and five readers would turn up swearing that they’d seen it, too. Ordinary, everyday people, such as you might buy a loaf off. How did he do it? Carney’s desk was covered with his own failed attempts. You needed a special kind of imagi—

  ‘Why, Sacharissa,’ he said, standing up as she crept into the room. ‘Do take the chair. I’m afraid I don’t have one for your … friend.’ He nodded at William. ‘May I say how sad I was to hear about the fire?’

  ‘It’s your office,’ said William coldly. ‘You can say anything you like.’ Beyond the window he could see the torches of the Watch, arriving at the ruins of the old shed. He took a step back.

  ‘Don’t be like that, William,’ said Sacharissa. ‘It’s because of that, you see, Ronnie, that we’ve come to you.’

  ‘Really?’ Carney smiled. ‘You have been a bit of a silly girl, haven’t you …?’

  ‘Yes, er … well, all our money was …’ Sacharissa sniffed. ‘The fact is … well, we’ve just got nothing now. We … worked so hard, so hard, and now it’s all gone …’ She started to sob.

  Ronnie Carney leaned over the desk and patted her hand.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he said.