Discworld 39 - Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

  “Are you feeling all right, commander?”

  Vimes turned and looked at the serious face of Lieutenant Perdix. “Well, I’m not certain when I last slept properly, but at least I can stay standing up! And I have all the names and descriptions.” Three names, and one, oh, what a name that was, that is if you trusted the word of someone happy to be called Captain Murderer. Well, the man was in his fifties, not a good age to have to run and hide. No, Murderer was not going to be a problem. Nor was Jefferson, idiot firebrand though he was. What Jefferson had suspected, Captain Murderer knew. But Vimes, on the other hand, hadn’t demanded the chance to take a crack at the Queen’s first mate, admittedly an unpleasant-looking cove with a chin like a butcher’s boot. He was swaggering toward them now, with the apprehensive Captain Murderer fussing along behind him.

  Vimes strolled up to the blacksmith, who seemed no worse for his impromptu voyage. “Come on, sir, Murderer will pay you whatever it takes to keep the lieutenant happy, and keep his own boat. Chalk it up to experience, eh?”

  “There’s still that bloody first mate,” said the blacksmith. “The rest of the crew were civil enough but he’s a bullying bastard!”

  “Well,” said Vimes, “here he is and so are you, it’s man-to-man, and I’ll stay here to see fair play. It’s an interesting day here. We’re trying a different kind of law, one that’s quick and doesn’t have to trouble any lawyers. So go on, he knows what you want, and so do you, Mr. Jefferson.”

  Other crewmen were congregating at this end of the beach. Vimes looked from face to face, all showing the working man’s intuition that a good bit of healthy violence might cheerfully be expected, and read the unspoken language. The first mate did look like a man who made a lot of use of his fists and his temper, and so, Vimes thought, there would probably be many among the crew who would like to see him given a little lesson—or even a great big one. He beckoned both the men toward him.

  “Gentlemen, this is a grudge match; you both know the score. If I see a knife may the gods help him who holds it. There is to be no murder here, saving you of course, captain, and in front of you all I give my word that I’ll stop the fight when I deem that one man has definitely had enough. Gentlemen, over to you.” And with this he stood back smartly.

  Neither man moved, but Jefferson said, “Do you know the Marquis of Fantailer Rules devised for the proper conduct for a bout of fisticuffs?”

  The first mate’s smile was evil. He said, “Yus, I do!”

  Vimes didn’t see, not actually see with his own eyes, what happened next, surely no one could, but it was agreed later that Jefferson had spun around in a blur and laid the sailor flat. The sound of his heavy body thumping down on the sand was all that broke the silence.

  After one second, Jefferson, massaging some blood back into his fist, looked down at the fallen giant and said, “I don’t.” He turned and looked at Vimes. “You know? He deliberately pissed on the goblins in the hold. Bastard.”

  Vimes tensed in case the fallen man had chums without a sense of humor, but in fact there was laughter. After all, a big man had gone down heavy right enough, bang to rights, and that was a definite result in anybody’s money. “Well done, Mr. Jefferson, a fair fight if ever I saw one. Perhaps these gentlemen will take the first mate back to his ship for a lie-down.”

  Vimes delivered this as an instruction, which was instantly obeyed as one, but he added, “If that’s all right by you, Captain Murderer? Good. And now I think that you and I’ll go, in an entirely friendly way, along with the lieutenant here, to the Quirm Watch headquarters, where there will be a little matter of affidavits to sign.”

  “I expect you will want to be leaving with some haste, commander,” said the lieutenant as they strolled along the Rue de Wakening.

  “Well, yes,” said Vimes. “I’m supposed to be on holiday. I’ll pick up young Feeney from the infirmary and find some way of getting back to the Hall.”

  The lieutenant looked surprised. “And you don’t want to get back on the heels of the murderer as soon as possible, sir?”

  “Him? I’ll see him soon enough, I have no doubt about that, but, you see, even he is not exactly the end of things. Do you play snooker down here?”

  “Well, I haven’t learned to play, but I understand the game, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then you’ll know that the ultimate aim of the game is to sink the black, although you’ll hit all the other colors during the course of a frame, and you’ll bash the red ones again and again, sometimes making use of them to further your strategy. Well, I know where to find the black, and black can’t run. The others? The captain has helpfully given us names and descriptions. If you wish to arrest them yourselves, for aiding and abetting the practice of trafficking sapient creatures for profit, then I leave that honor to the Quirm constabulary.”

  Vimes grinned. “As for me, after I have the affidavits I intend to go straight back to see my wife and little boy, who I have shamefully, no, desperately neglected over the past few days, and do you know what? Just as soon as I’ve got there, I’m going to bring them back down here! My wife will enjoy the fresh air, and Young Sam will just love the elephants, oh, won’t he just!”

  The lieutenant brightened up. “May I suggest, then, that after dinner you take the overnight boat? It will be the Black-Eyed Susan, quite speedy, like her namesake, according to popular legend. She’s due to go upriver in, let me see, three quarters of an hour. She’s very fast, doesn’t take much in the way of cargo so they gear her up high. You’ll be home in the morning, how about that? Just time to get yourself smartened up, and if you like the idea then I will get one of the men to go and find the Susan’s captain and make certain she doesn’t leave without you.”

  Vimes smiled. “What’s the weather forecast?”

  “Clear skies, commander, and Old Treachery is as flat as a mill pond, scoured of every snag and boulder for the rest of the season. It’s plain sailing from now on.”

  “Good evening, your grace!” The voice was somewhat familiar and Vimes saw, sauntering down the boulevard, what at first seemed liked a man wearing a huge cummerbund until further swift forensic inspection showed that it was the hermit from the Hall. His beard was remarkably clean and wrapped around his body, as were two young ladies of the giggling persuasion.

  Vimes peered at him. “Stump? What are you doing down here?”

  This caused further giggling.

  “I’m on holiday, commander! Yes, indeed! Every man should have a holiday, sir!”

  Vimes didn’t know what to say and so patted the man on the shoulder and said, “Knock yourself out, Mr. Stump, and don’t forget the nourishing herbs.”

  “I think I’m going to need them, commander … ”

  Say what you like, the food in the Quirm Watch House canteen was pretty damn good, even if they did use a shade too much avec, thought Vimes; avec on everything.

  Vimes, well fed and cleaned up and with some very important paperwork stuffed down the inside of his freshly laundered and immaculately ironed shirt, walked with Chief Constable Upshot down the quayside toward the Black-Eyed Susan. The lieutenant and two of the guards accompanied him to his cabin, where the dwarf butler demonstrated to him the cleanliness of the bed and the crispness of the sheets.

  “Honored to have you sleeping in them, commander. You will find that the Susan gives a very smooth ride, although she can sometimes bounce around a little, very much like her namesake, but least said, soonest mended. And, of course, there is a berth next door for officer Feeney. You gentlemen might like to see the Susan get under way, perhaps?”

  They did. The Susan had two oxen, just like the Wonderful Fanny, but with no heavy cargo and only about ten passengers she was the express of Old Treachery. Her paddle wheels, highly geared indeed, left a line of white water all down the valley behind her.

  �
��What happens now, commander?” said Feeney, leaning on the rail as they watched Quirm disappearing in the wake behind them. “I mean, what are we going to do next?”

  Vimes was smoking a cigar with great pleasure. Somehow this seemed the time and the place. Snuff was all very well, but a good cigar had time and wisdom and personality. He would be unhappy to see this one go.

  “I don’t need to do anything now,” he said, turning to look at the sunset. And I don’t often see sunsets these days either, he thought. Mostly I see midnights; and I don’t need to chase Stratford, either. I know him like I know myself. He mentally paused, momentarily shocked at the implication.

  Aloud he continued, “You saw those two Quirmian officers get on the boat, didn’t you? I arranged that. They will, of course, make certain that we have an undisturbed voyage. The crew have also been told that there may be some attempt by a murderer to board the boat. According to the lieutenant, Captain Harbinger can vouch for all of his crew as having sailed with him loyally for many years. Personally, of course, I’ll make certain the door to my berth is locked, and I’d suggest you do the same thing, Feeney.

  “Greed is at the center of this, greed and hellish poisons. They’re both killers and greed is the worst, by a long way. You know, usually when I’m talking to young officers such as yourself I say that in a certain type of case, you should always follow the money, you should ask ‘Who stands to lose? Who stands to gain?’ ” Vimes regretfully tossed the butt of his cigar into the water. “But sometimes you should follow the arrogance … You should look for those who can’t believe that the law would ever catch them, who believe that they act out of a right that the rest of us do not have. The job of the officer of the law is to let them know that they are wrong!”

  The sun was setting. “I do believe, Commander Vimes, that you have something in you that would turn the wheels of this boat all by itself if a man could but harness it!” said Feeney admiringly. “And I remember reading somewhere that you would arrest the gods for doing it wrong.”

  Vimes shook his head. “I’m sure I never said anything of the sort! But law is order and order is law and it must be the highest thing. The world runs on it, the heavens run on it and without order, lad, one second cannot follow another.”

  He could feel himself swaying. Lack of sleep can poison the mind, drive it in strange directions. Vimes felt Feeney’s hand on his shoulder. “I’ll help you along to your cabin, commander. It’s been a very long day.”

  Vimes didn’t remember getting undressed and into bed, or rather into bunk, but he clearly had done so and, according to the little bits of white foam on the cabin’s tiny washbasin, he had cleaned his teeth as well. He had slept the sleep of the dead except for the bit where bits fall off and you crumble into dust, and all he could recall was cool blackness and, rising now to the surface, a certainty, as if a message had been left in the blackness to await the return of thought. He is after you, Blackboard Monitor Vimes. You know this because you recognize what was in his eyes. You know that type. They want to die from the day they are born, but something twists and so they kill instead. He will find you, and so will I. I hope the three of us meet in darkness.

  As the message drained away Vimes stared at the opposite wall, in which the door now opened, after a cursory knock, to reveal the steward bearing that which is guaranteed to frighten away all nightmares, to wit, a cup of hot tea.*

  “No need to get up, commander,” came the cheerful greeting of the steward, as he carefully placed the cup of tea in a little indentation that some foresighted person had designed into the tiny cabin so that said teacup would not slide around. “The captain would like to inform you that we’ll be docking in about twenty minutes, although of course you’ll be welcome to stay aboard and finish your breakfast while we clean the scuppers and take on fresh oxen and, of course, pick up mail and fodder and a few more passengers. In the galley, I have today … ” and here the steward enthusiastically rattled off a menu of belly-stuffing proportions, concluding triumphantly with, “a bacon sandwich!”

  Vimes cleared his throat and said gloomily, “I don’t suppose you have any muesli, do you?” After all, Sybil was only twenty minutes away.

  The steward looked puzzled. “Well, yes, we would have the ingredients, of course, but I didn’t peg you as a rabbit food man?”

  Vimes thought about Sybil again. “Well, perhaps today my little nose is twitching.”

  Luxurious though the cabin was, roomy it was not. Vimes managed to shave with a razor donated by the steward, “with the compliments of the captain, commander,” and a thoughtfully placed basin, soap, flannel and minute towel, which at least helped him to deal with the form of ablution his old mother had called “washing the bits that showed.” He paid attention to them, nevertheless, taking some pains in the knowledge that this little wooden world would evaporate very soon and he would be back in the world of Sam Vimes, husband and father. Periodically, however, as he made himself respectable, he turned back to himself in the shaving mirror and said, “Fred Colon!”

  The luxury cabin had turned out to be wonderful to sleep in, although so small that in reality it would only be suitable for a fastidious corpse. But eventually, when every part of Vimes he could reach had been decently, if erratically, scrubbed and the steward had brought him a hermit-sized portion of fruits and nuts and grains, he looked around to see what he might have left behind and saw a face in the shaving mirror. It was his own, although it must be said the phenomenon is not unusual in shaving mirrors. The Vimes in the mirror said, You know he doesn’t just want to kill you. That wouldn’t be good enough for a bastard like that, not by a long way. He wants to destroy you and will try everything until he does.

  “I know,” said Vimes, and added, “You’re not a demon, are you?”

  “Absolutely not,” said his mirror image. “I might be made up of your subconscious mind and a momentary case of muesli poisoning occasioned by a fermenting raisin. Watch where you walk, commander. Watch everywhere.” And then it was gone.

  Vimes stepped away from the mirror and turned around slowly. It must have been my face, he said to himself, otherwise it would have been the other way round, wouldn’t it?

  He walked down the gangway into reality and what turned out to be Corporal Nobby Nobbs, beyond whom reality does not get much more real.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Vimes! My word, you’re looking fit! Your holiday must be doing you a lot of good. Got any bags?” This was asked in the absolute certainty that Vimes would have no bags, but a show of willing is always worth a try.

  “Is everything all right?” said Vimes, ignoring this.

  Nobby scratched his nose and a bit fell off. Oh yes, thought Vimes, I’m back, all right!

  “Well, the usual stuff that happens is happening, but we’re on top of it. Could I draw your attention to the hill over there? They were very careful not to harm the trees, and Lady Sybil herself promised a lingering death to anyone who upset the goblins.”

  Mystified, Vimes scanned the skyline and saw Hangman’s Hill. “Hells bells! It’s a clacks tower, it’s a bloody clacks tower! Sybil will go totally librarian about it!”

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Vimes, Lady Sybil was all for it by the time she’d read all of Captain Carrot’s note. He said this was no time for you to be out of touch. You know that, sir, very persuasive officer, which is how come he got the clacks company to rush up here toot sweet with a temporary tower. Worked all night, so they did, and got it lined up on the Grand Trunk sweet as a nut!”

  This time Nobby picked his nose, briefly inspected the contents for interest or value, then flicked them away and went on, “Only one thing, sir, the Ankh-Morpork Times wants to interview you about how you are a great hero what saved someone’s wonderful fanny—”

  There was a pause while they waited for Feeney to stop choking with laughter and get his breath back and the
n Vimes said, “Corporal Nobby Nobbs, this here is Chief Constable Upshot. I call him chief constable because he’s the only law in these parts, that is until now. This is his patch, and so you will respect it, okay? Who else came with you from the Smoke?”

  “Sergeant Detritus, Mr. Vimes, but he’s up at the Hall, guarding her ladyship and Young Sam with delicate surreptition.”

  A part of Vimes had unknowingly been holding its breath. Detritus and Willikins? Together they could face an army. He shook himself. “But not Fred Colon?”

  “No, Mr. Vimes, as I understand it we were on our way when the second clacks came through, but I reckon that he’ll be here pretty soon.”

  “Gentlemen, I’m going home,” said Vimes, “but, Mr. Feeney, how soon will another boat go down to Quirm?”

  Feeney beamed. “You’re in luck, commander. The Roberta E. Biscuit will be going tomorrow morning! Just the job for what I think you might want. Big and slow, but you won’t mind that, because there’s gambling and entertainment. Lots of tourists on it, but don’t you worry, sir, your name is big on the river already. Trust me! Say the word and the captain of the Biscuit will make certain that there’s a king-size, I mean, sorry, commander-size stateroom for you, how about that?”

  Vimes opened his mouth to ask, is it expensive? And shut it again with the embarrassed realization that the Ramkin fortune could almost certainly buy every vessel on Old Treachery.

  Feeney, like the good copper he was becoming, noticed that slight moment of hesitation and said, “Your money won’t be good on the river, commander, believe me. The savior of the Fanny won’t have to buy his own cigars or a stateroom anywhere along Old Treachery!”

  Nobby Nobbs was almost bent double with laughter and managed to choke out, “The Fanny!”

  Vimes sighed. “Nobby, her name was Francesca, Fanny for short. Understand?” It didn’t work with some people; it only just did with Vimes. “And, Nobby, I want you to wait here, and as soon as Fred’s coach arrives you’re in charge of getting him up to the goblin cave on the hill, okay?”