Discworld 39 - Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

  “Yes indeed, commander,” said Willikins. “Where I used to play the only rule was that after you’d hit your opponent over the head with your cue you had to be able to run very fast. I understand from her ladyship that you might be requiring my assistance tonight?”

  “Yes, please. We’re going to the village of Hangnails. It’s about twenty miles upriver.”

  Willikins nodded. “Yes indeed, sir, once the seat of the Hangnail family and most notably of Lord Justice Hangnail, who famously declared that he never took account of any plea of not guilty on the basis that ‘criminals always lie’ and was, by happy chance, the Worshipful Master of the Benevolent Company of Rope Makers and Braiders. With any luck, we’ll not see his like again.”

  “Excellent, Willikins, and we’ll stop en route to pick up our keen young local constable, who’ll see fair play. I intend to make sure of that.”

  “Glad to hear it, sir,” said Willikins, “but bear this in mind: what does it matter once the ball has dropped?”

  It was Mrs. Upshot who opened the cottage door, gave a little scream, slammed the door, opened the door to apologize for slamming the door, and then shut the door carefully, leaving Vimes on the doorstep. Thirty seconds later Feeney opened the door, with his nightshirt tucked into his trousers. “Commander Vimes! Is something wrong?” he said, trying valiantly to tuck all the nightshirt inside.

  Vimes rubbed his hands together briskly. “Yes, Chief Constable Upshot, almost everything is, but there is one part that can be made right with your help. Regarding the murder of the goblin girl, I have sufficient information to warrant apprehending two men for questioning. This is your manor, so professionally speaking I think it’s only right and proper that you assist me with the arrests.”

  Vimes took a step into the room so that the face of Willikins was visible, and went on, “And I think you know Willikins, my manservant, who has volunteered to drive my coach and, of course, provide me with a clean white shirt should I need it.”

  “Yerrr,” growled Willikins, turning to wink at Vimes.

  “Chief Constable Upshot, I’d be obliged if you would arm yourself with whatever you think you might need and, since you don’t have a pair of handcuffs worth a damn, oh I’m so sorry, then at least can you source some rope?”

  The face of Feeney Upshot was a whole palette of conflicting emotions. I’ll be working with the famous Commander Vimes—hooray! But this is big and serious—oh dear. But it’ll be like being a real policeman—hooray! But there’s already a hot water bottle in my bed—oh dear. On the other hand, if it all goes wrong, well, after all, the Duke of Ankh owns most of this place, so he’ll have to take most of the blame—hooray! And maybe if I distinguish myself I can get a job in the city, so that my mum can live in a place where you don’t lie awake at night listening to the mice fighting the cockroaches—hooray!*

  It was a treat for Vimes to watch the lad’s face in the candlelight, especially as Feeney moved his lips as he thought. And so he said, “I’m sure, Chief Constable Upshot, that assistance in this matter will be very helpful to your future career.”

  This last comment caused Mrs. Upshot, peering over her son’s shoulder, to flush with pride and say, “Hark at his grace, Feeney! You could make something of yourself, just like I’m always telling you! No arguing now, off you go, my lad.”

  This motherly advice was punctuated by Mrs. Upshot bobbing up and down so fast that she could have been harnessed to a sewing machine. Thank goodness for old mums, Vimes thought, as Feeney eventually got into the coach with a flask of hot tea, a spare pair of clean drawers and half an apple pie.

  As the wheels started to turn, and after Feeney had finished waving to his old mum out of the window, Vimes, balancing carefully against the rocking, lit the little spirit lamp that was all the coach had for illumination. He fell back into his seat again and said, “I’d be grateful, lad, if you would take some time to write down in your notebook everything I’ve said to you since I arrived this evening. It might be of assistance to both of us.” Feeney practically saluted, and Vimes continued, “When we saw the dead goblin girl the other day, Mr. Feeney, did you make a note of that in your notebook?”

  “Yes, sir!” Feeney nearly saluted again. “My granddad told me always to write everything down in my notebook!”

  They bounced in their seats as the coach hit a stone and Vimes said quietly, “Did he ever tell you to accidentally sometimes turn over two pages at once so that you had the occasional blank page?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Should I?”

  The seat bounced them up and down again as Vimes said, “Strictly speaking, lad, the answer is no, especially if you never work with me. Now please write it all down, just as I asked. And since I am not as young as you, I’m going to try to get some rest.”

  “Yessir, I understand that, sir. Just one thing, sir? Mr. Stoner, the Clerk to the Magistrates, came to see me this afternoon, and had a chat and said not to bother about the goblin girl because goblins are officially vermin. He was very kind, and brought some brandy for my old mum, and he said that you were a fine gentleman but tended to get a bee in your bonnet, sir, what with being upper-class and out of touch, sir. Sir? Sir? Have you gone to sleep, sir?”

  Vimes turned his head and in honeyed tones said, “Did you make a note of that in your notebook, lad?”

  “Oh, yessir!”

  “And you still got in this coach with me? Why did you do that, Mr. Feeney?”

  Gravel rattled behind them and it seemed some time before Feeney Upshot had assembled his thoughts to his satisfaction. He said, “Well, Commander Vimes, I thought, well, that Mr. Stoner he’s a nob more or less, and so is Commander Vimes, only he’s a duke and is therefore a very big nob and if you’re going to get caught between nobs, maybe you’d better pick the biggest one to be on the side of.” He heard Vimes grunt, and continued, “And then, sir, I thought, well, I was up there, I saw that poor creature and what had been done to her, and I remembered that Stoner had tried to make a fool out of me by making me arrest your good self, sir, and I thought about the goblins and I thought, well, they’re mucky and smelly and the old goblin was crying, and animals don’t cry and goblins, well, they make stuff, beautiful stuff and as for pinching our pig swill and being generally mucky, we surely ain’t short of humans around here who are pretty big in that respect, I could tell you some stories, and so I thought some more and I thought, well, that Mr. Stoner, I thought he must have got it wrong.”

  There was a rumbling as the coach went over a bridge and then the sound of wheels on packed flints was back. Feeney said anxiously, “Is that all right, sir?” He waited nervously. And then the voice of Vimes, and this time sounding rather far away said, “Do you know what that little speech you made was called, Mr. Feeney?”

  “Don’t know, sir, it’s just what I think.”

  “It was called redemption, Mr. Feeney. Hold on to it.”

  Vimes woke from a doze in which he had dreamed about Young Sam playing a harp, and by the time he had understood that this was a dream the noise of the coach wheels had changed as they slowed down and stopped.

  Willikins slid open the small slot that allowed discourse between passenger and coachman and said quietly, “Rise and shine, sir, we’re about a quarter of a mile from Hangnails, population thirty-seven and still stupid. And you can smell turkey from here and wish you bloody well couldn’t, excuse my Klatchian. I surmised that it might be a good idea to walk quietly the rest of the way, sir.”

  Vimes got down from the coach and stamped the cramp out of his limbs. The air stank with the curiously invasive smell of birds; not even goblins persecuted the sinuses one half so badly. But this was a tiny distraction compared with the thrill, yes, the thrill. How long was it since he had led a dawn raid? Far too long, that’s how long, and now captains and senior sergeants got the job while he stayed in the office, being the A
nkh-Morpork City Watch. Well, not today.

  Whispering as they walked through the knee-high mist, he said, “You, Chief Constable Upshot, you will hammer on the front door when I give you the signal, and I will be stationed outside the back door in case the gentleman does a runner, okay?”

  They were nearing the property now, yes, they would just need the two of them. The farmhouse looked barely big enough to have two doors, let alone three.

  “What shall I say, commander?” hissed Feeney.

  “Oh, blimey, you’re the bloody son and grandson of coppers, my lad, what the hell do you think you should shout? Let me give you a clue. It does not include the word ‘please.’ I’ll give you a whistle when I’m in position, got it? Good.”

  They walked with care across the stinking yard and Vimes took up station around the back, where an interesting thought occurred to him and he made a mental note. He then leaned against the dirty wall of the house a little bit away from the back door, took a pinch of snuff to clear the air of turkey and gave one faint whistle.

  “Open up in the name of the law! You are surrounded! You have one minute to open the door! I mean it! Open the door! This is the police!”

  Leaning cosily against the wall, Vimes grudgingly rated that as pretty good for a beginner, with one point taken off for adding “I mean it,” then, as a man flew out of the back door, he stuck out his boot.

  “Good morning, sir. My name is Commander Vimes! I hope you’re in a position to remember yours!”

  In the sheds the turkeys were going insane, causing a slight rise in the smell. The man struggled to his feet, looking around desperately.

  “Oh, yes, you could run, yes, you could do that,” said Vimes in a conversational tone of voice, “but it might be thought by others that this might indicate that you knew you had some reason to run. Now, personally, I would agree that anyone stopped by a copper should run like buggery, innocent or not, on first principles. Besides, we get so fat these days that we need the exercise. But do run if you want to, Mr. Flutter, because I can run too, and very fast.”

  By now Flutter was smiling the smile of a man who thinks that this copper is not very smart.

  “I bet you don’t have a magistrate’s warrant, do ya’?”

  “Well now, Mr. Flutter, why might you think that, eh? Perhaps you think the magistrates might not issue a warrant to arrest you, yes? By the way, thank you for showing me where the tobacco barrels are stored. Your cooperation will be taken into consideration.”

  Some days are bad days, like when you stare right down into the mangled corpse of a young woman, and then you get good days, when the suspect’s darting eyes flashing across the yard show you exactly where the loot is hidden.

  “I shall, of course, mention your cooperation to the authorities and, of course, in the local pub as well, ah, yes.”

  And now Mr. Flutter was relishing the thought of being seen as some kind of grass, so stupidly he went for, “I never told you anything about any tobacco, and you know it, copper!”

  At this point Feeney stepped around the corner with his fearsome club raised and a look of almost comical aggression on his face. “You want me to give him the old one-two, commander, just say the word, guv!”

  Vimes rolled his eyes in mock despair. “No need for that, Feeney, no need for that, just when Mr. Flutter here is so anxious to talk to us, understand?”

  Flutter decided that the way forward was an appeal to Feeney. “Look, Feeney, you know me—”

  He got that far and no further because Feeney said, “It’s Constable Upshot to you, Flutter. My dad had you up before the beaks two dozen times, you know. He used to call you the bluebottle on account of whenever there was a load of shit going down he’d find you flapping about in it. And he told me to watch you, which is what I am doing right now, in fact.” He glanced at Vimes, who gave him an encouraging nod and then said, “You see my problem, Mr. Flutter, we’re not here to talk about contraband tobacco, okay? Now, I never saw myself as a revenuer, not a popular profession. I’m a copper pure and simple, right, and in my hand I have this man what is only doing a favor to his employer by storing a few barrels of tobacco in his shed, but on the other hand, well, if I found a murderer in the other hand, why, gods bless you, I might totally forget all about the first hand …Don’t ask me to draw you a picture, Flutter, because my hands are full.”

  Flutter looked aghast. “This is about that goblin, right? Look, it wasn’t me! Okay, I’m a bit of a naughty boy, I put my hand up to that, but I ain’t like him! I’m a scallywag, not a damn murderer!”

  Vimes looked at Feeney. Some people could be said to be as pleased as punch. Feeney could be said to look as pleased as Punch, Judy, the dog Toby, the crocodile and, above all, the policeman, all rolled in together. Vimes raised his eyebrows in new interrogation, and Feeney said, “I believe him, chief. He hasn’t got it in him, I swear. The best he could manage would be knocking over an old lady for her purse, and even then she’d probably have to be blind too.”

  “There, you see!” said Flutter triumphantly. “I’m not really a bad person!”

  “No,” said Vimes, “you’re a veritable choirboy, Mr. Flutter, I can see that, and I’m rather religious too, and I like chapter and verse, but are you willing to swear that the individual known as Stratford knifed a goblin girl to death on Hangman’s Hill in the grounds of Ramkin Hall, three nights ago?”

  Flutter raised a finger. “Can I say that I told him to stop, and he laughed, and I didn’t know it was a girl neither—I mean, how can you tell?”

  Vimes’s face was deadpan. “Tell me, Ted, what would you have done if you had known? I’m intrigued.”

  Flutter looked down at his feet. “Well, I, well, well, I mean …not a girl, I mean …well, not a girl …I mean, that’s not right, know what I mean?”

  And you can find someone like this dangerous clown in nearly every neighborhood, Vimes thought. “Clearly chivalry is not dead, Mr. Flutter. Okay, Feeney, let’s carry on. Mr. Flutter, why were you on Hangman’s Hill on the aforesaid night?”

  “We were just having a walk,” said Flutter.

  Vimes’s face was again deadpan, so deadpan as to be mortified. “Of course you were, Mr. Flutter. Silly of me to ask the question, really. Constable Upshot, I can see Willikins over there having a smoke.” He pushed at the open door and dragged Flutter inside. “Does this building have a cellar?”

  Flutter was one step away from a toilet break, but nevertheless, being the kind of fool to dig himself in deeper, managed to sneer, “There might be. So what?”

  “Mr. Flutter, I have already told you that I’m a religious man, and since you would test the patience of a saint I need to spend a moment in quiet contemplation, understand? I’m sure you know that there’s always an easy way, and then again, there’s always the hard way. Currently, this is the easy way, but the hard way is also quite easy, in a manner of speaking. Before talking to you again I want to be alone with my thoughts. And it occurs to me, Mr. Flutter, that you might have some thoughts about, as it were, legging it, and so my colleague, Chief Constable Upshot, will guard the door and I shall send in my batman, Mr. Willikins, to keep you company.”

  Before Vimes was even able to tap on the window, the door opened and Willikins, immaculate as ever, stepped into the grubby room, all smart and crisp with shiny shoes and a hint of pomade on his hair. The three men then watched Vimes heave at a likely ring on the floor, which pulled back to reveal the trap door to a dark cellar and a ladder going down.

  Vimes said, “Constable Upshot, I need a little time to think in the darkness. I won’t be long.” He went down the ladder and pulled the trap door closed behind him.

  The darkness said, “Ah, commander, at long last. I suspect that you’re here to take a witness statement.”

  This is wrong, Vimes told himself. How can you take testimon
y from a demon, especially when it’s one of no fixed abode? But on the other hand, who needs a witness statement if you’ve got a confession?

  Up above, Ted Flutter’s eyes rolled this way and that as he analyzed the situation. Let’s see: we have one young twit who is playing at being a copper, and a snooty butler type, all pink and shiny. I reckon Mrs. Flutter’s little boy is out of here. At this point, at this very point, Willikins, without looking at Flutter, reached into his jacket and there was a slap as he laid down on the table in front of him a steel comb. It gleamed. And it gleamed even stronger in Flutter’s imagination. He took one look at Willikins’ expression, and Mrs. Flutter’s little boy decided he would sit very still until that nice Commander Vimes came back. Out of another pocket Willikins produced the sharpest-looking knife Flutter had ever seen and, without paying any attention whatsoever to Flutter, began to clean his fingernails.

  In fact it was only a matter of seconds before the trap door was heaved back, and Vimes emerged, then nodded to Willikins, who secured the comb and walked out of the room without a word. Vimes regained the chair. “Mr. Flutter, I have a witness statement that puts you on Hangman’s Hill on the night in question with another man, said man being known as Stratford. The witness tells me that you said to him that you could have got hold of some turkey blood, but he said that there were rabbits all over the place and he never missed with his slingshot. At this point the witness says a young goblin girl came out of the bushes and your companion struck at her as she was begging for her life—and furiously, to the extent that you yourself told him, in your words, to leave off, upon which he turned on you, still holding his knife, described to me as a machete, so swiftly that you urinated into your boots.