Discworld 39 - Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

  The flames were so high over the Ramkin Estate that the blaze could surely be seen all the way to Ankh-Morpork (bet you a gallon of brandy and a brace of turbot). There was barely any wind and it stood there like a beacon.

  Vimes announced to the gathered throng, “Ladies and gentlemen, the area known as the Shires is under the rule of law tonight, and by that I mean the proper law, the law that is written down for everybody to see, and even to be changed if enough people agree. Chief Constable Upshot and Constable Jefferson are currently acting with the backing of their colleagues in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, who would like to be assured that their colleagues receive the respect that is due. At this moment, a number of people from the Shires are being courteously brought here, although possibly to their dismay. Some of them will be the people who call themselves your magistrates and they will be taken away and asked to explain to a lawyer by what right they have assumed that position. If any one of you wants to argue with me, please come on and do so. The law is there for the people, rather than the other way round. When it is the other way round don’t hesitate to grab your weapons, understand? The bar is still free, BUT BEFORE YOU STAMPEDE, THERE IS ONE MORE THING!”

  Vimes had to put the megaphone back to his mouth because the mention of “bar” and “free” in one breath has an invigorating effect on people. “Right now, ladies and gentlemen, the goblins on Hangman’s Hill, and indeed all other goblins in this area, are under my protection and the protection of the law. They are also subject to it, and I’ll see to it that they have their own police force. It appears that they make natural clacks operators, so if they wish they can derive a revenue from so doing. I’m paying to have that clacks tower made permanent. You will benefit from it and so will they! They won’t need to steal your chickens because they’ll buy them from you, and if they do pinch them, then that’s a crime and will be treated as such. One law, ladies and gentlemen … One size fits all!”

  There was a cheer at this, as loud as any cheer in the vicinity of the prospect of a free bar can be. Of course, some of it might have been cheer at the fact that there was now some justice in the world, but on the whole it was quite likely that the bar won the day. You didn’t have to be a cynic, you just had to understand people.

  Vimes walked slowly toward the brightly lit pub, although the chances of getting inside were small. On the other hand, the chances of being given a hug by Miss Felicity Beedle were exactly one hundred per cent, because that was what she was doing, while being watched sheepishly by the blacksmith.

  Vimes let go of her hand as she said, “You are a great man, commander, and I hope they put up a statue to you!”

  “Oh dear, I hope not! You only get a statue when you’re dead!”

  She laughed, but Vimes said, “Listen, Miss Beedle, right now I don’t know if I’m facing a statue or the sack. Some of the ways I’ve acted have been quite lawful, and others have been somewhat … debatable. I have an officer who can do with numbers what Sergeant Detritus can do with a hammer and he’s going through the records of the son of one of the most influential people in Ankh-Morpork. And at the same time experienced police officers have visited the home of every member on the list of local magistrates. They are presenting them with a document, under my seal, informing them that they are no longer members of the self-elected board of magistrates of the Shires and reiterating that there may be formal charges to be made. My justification for this ought to work, but now? It’s probably going to be a case of who has the best lawyers.

  “The future, Miss Beedle, is somewhat uncertain, but I have to tell you that Young Sam, thanks to you, is probably going to be the world expert on poo. I must tell you that his mother and I are very pleased and only hope he aspires to higher things.”

  There was already the rattle of wagons and coaches in the distance; the sound of pigeons coming home to roost. “I think I’ll soon have people to talk to, Miss Beedle, although I suspect that they’d rather not talk to me.”

  “Of course, commander. Can I say that the goblins seem very attached to your Corporal Nobbs? They treat him as one of their own, in fact, and he seems to be very fond of Shine of the Rainbow, as she is of him. You may be interested to know that the goblin name for him is Breaking Wind?”

  She did not appear to smile and Vimes said, “Yes, very apt. I’ve always thought of Nobby as a draft-extruder. In fact, at my wife’s express suggestion I have breveted him to the rank of sergeant for his stay here, and I hope that he’ll assist the goblins to understand the benefits of the law—although, of course, the fusion might simply mean that people’s chickens will be more expertly stolen from now on.”

  “Oh, you are a joker, commander!”

  Vimes’s expression had not changed and did not change now. “Yes, aren’t I?”

  He turned to Jefferson. “You know, things would have been a lot easier if you’d trusted me at the start.”

  The blacksmith shrugged. “Why should I have trusted you? You’re a nob.”

  “Do you trust me now?”

  The blacksmith’s gaze remained steady for longer than Vimes could be happy with, but at last the man smiled and said, “Yeah, for now.”

  There was only one reply that Vimes could conceivably deliver. He smiled back and said, “A policeman’s answer if ever I heard one.”

  As the couple strolled away there was a polite cough behind Vimes. He turned around and recognized the worried face of the colonel. “Do you have a minute, commander?”

  Oh dear, thought Vimes.

  “May I first say, commander, that I firmly agree with what you are doing and heavens know it needed doing.” The colonel coughed again and said, “You will not have any disagreement with me on that point.” Vimes waited and he continued, “My wife is a rather foolish woman who does appear to worship things like titles and, if I may say so, gives herself airs. Her father was a fisherman, an extremely good one, but do you know what? I think she would rather die than have anyone know.”

  There was another pause, and in the red light Vimes could see the shine on the old man’s face. “What is going to happen to her, commander? At the moment, two polite young ladies in Ankh-Morpork City Watch uniform are standing guard over her in our house. I don’t know if this helps very much, but the first thing she did when the arresting officers arrived was make them tea. There is such a thing as good manners, you see. Is she going to prison?”

  Vimes felt the urge to say, “Would you like her to?” but he choked it back, because of the tears. “It’s Charles, isn’t it?”

  The colonel looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, commander, it’s Chas to my friends.”

  “Am I one of them?” And Vimes went on, “Other people will decide what has to be done here. I’ve merely made certain that nobody can inadvertently leave before I’ve had a chance to talk to them all, do you understand? I’m not the judge and nor would I be allowed to sit on a jury. Coppers aren’t. And right now I’m not even certain what the penalty is for being stupid, vain and unthinking, although it does occur to me that if I was to put in prison every person guilty of these crimes we’d have to build about five hundred more.

  “Speaking for myself,” Vimes continued, “I’d like to see that murderers, if such I might find, are seen and dealt with as murderers, and the frightened and unthinking obedient also treated as they deserve. And right now, sir, I’d just like to not be living in a world of bloody fools. Personally, I have no particular interest in seeing your wife in prison, although I have a suspicion that if she was put in the women’s wing of the Tanty her horizon would be usefully expanded and I expect she’d be so bossy that she’d be running the place after a couple of weeks.”

  “I do love her, you know,” said the colonel. “We’ve been married for fifty-five years. I’m very sorry you’ve been troubled and, as I’ve said, I envy you your job.”

  “I think, perhaps, I sh
ould envy her her husband,” said Vimes. “You know, colonel, I’ll be happy just for the truth to come out, preferably on page one of the Ankh-Morpork Times, if you understand me.”

  “Absolutely, commander.”

  Vimes looked down at the man, who now looked rather relieved, and added, “For what it’s worth, I suspect Lord Vetinari will make certain of his backing and possibly there will be some token punishments. Too many skeletons, you see, too many cupboards. Too many things around the world that maybe happened too long ago. What in the world can you do if some copper is going to go around digging them up? That’s called realpolitik, sir, and so I suspect that the world will go on and you will not be very long without the company of your wife, which should, if I’m any judge, mean that you can have more or less anything for dinner that you want for the next week.”

  The idea seemed to uplift the colonel’s spirits. The old man smiled. “Do you know, commander, I’m sure that, if treated with respect, potted shrimps might turn out to be my bosom chums.”

  The colonel held out his hand and Vimes took it, shook it and said, “Bon appétit.”

  Afterward, there were several explanations about why the Quirm wagon containing a very important prisoner overturned in the middle of the night and rolled down a very steep hill, coming to bits as it did so. You could blame the dark, you could blame the fog, you could blame its speed and above all you could blame the express mail coach from Ankh-Morpork that ran straight into it on the corner.

  By the time the wounded were in any state to comprehend what had happened they were minus one prisoner, who appeared to have picked the lock of his shackles, and plus one guard whose throat had been cut.

  It was dark, it was cold, it was foggy and, hunched together, the survivors waited until dawn. After all, how could you find a man in darkness?

  Stratford was good at speed. Speed was always useful, and he stayed on the road that was just visible in the murk. It didn’t really matter where he went; after all, he knew no one had ever given a description of him that helped. It was a gift to be indescribable.

  After a while, however, he was surprised and delighted to hear a horse trotting along the road behind him. Some brave traveler, he thought, and smiled in the fog and waited. To his further surprise, the horse was reined to a halt a little way from him and the rider slid off. Stratford could barely make out a shape in the shimmering, water-laden air.

  “My word! The famous Mr. Stratford,” said a voice cheerfully, as the stranger strolled toward him. “And let me tell you right now, if you make any kind of move you’ll be so dead that the graveyards would have to run backward.”

  “I know you! Vimes sent you, after me?”

  “Oh, dear me no, sir,” said Willikins. “The commander doesn’t know I’m here at all, sir, and nor will he ever. That is a certainty. No, sir, I’m here, as it might be, out of a matter of professional pride. By the way, sir, if you’re thinking of killing me and taking my horse I’d be most grateful if you’d try that right now.”

  Stratford hesitated. There was something about the voice that induced hesitation. It was calm, friendly, and … worrying.

  Willikins strolled a little closer and there was a chuckle in his voice. “My word, sir, I’m a bit of a fighter myself, and when I heard about you chopping up that girl and that, I thought, goodness me, I thought. And so the other day, when I had my day off in lieu—very important your day off in lieu, if you’re a working man—I took a trip up to Overhang and learned a few things about you, and, my word, did I learn a few things. You really scare people, eh?”

  Stratford still hesitated. This didn’t sound right. The man had a straightforward and cheerful voice, like a man you didn’t know very well having a companionable chat in the pub, and Stratford was used to people being very nervous when they spoke to him.

  “Now, me,” said Willikins, “I was raised by the street as a fighter and I fight dirty, you can depend on that, and I’ll fight anybody, but I never punched a girl … oh, except Kinky Elsie, who was always game for that sort of thing and had me by the I’m-not-going-to-mentions at the time and my hands were tied, in more ways than one, as it were, and so I had to give her a sharp nudge with my foot. Happy days. But you? You’re just a killer. Worthless. A bully. I fight because I might get killed and the other bloke might win, or maybe we’d both end up in the gutter, too weak to throw another punch, when, quite likely, we’d prop each other up and go to the pub for a drink and a wash.”

  He took another step closer. Stratford took a step back. “And you, Mr. Stratford, set out to kill Commander Vimes’s little lad, or worse. And do you know what is even worser? I reckon that if you’d done so, the commander would have arrested you and dragged you to the nearest police station. But inside he’d be cutting himself up with razorblades from top to bottom. And he’d be doing that because the poor bugger is scared that he could be as bad as you.” Willikins laughed. “Truth is, Mr. Stratford, from where I sits he’s a choirboy, he really is, but there has to be some justice in the world, you see, not necessarily law justice, but justice justice, and that’s why I am going to kill you. Although, because I’m a fair man I’m going to give you a chance to kill me first. That means one or other of us will die, so whatever happens the world is going to be a better place, eh? Call it … cleaning up. I know you have a weapon because you’d have run if you didn’t, and so I reckon you have a blade from one of those poor buggers from Quirm and I warrant that in all the confusion you probably stabbed him with it.”

  “I did, too,” said Stratford. “And he was a copper and you’re just a butler.”

  “Very true,” said Willikins, “and much older than you and heavier than you and slower than you, but still a bit spry. What’ve you got to lose?”

  Only the horse, steaming patiently in the mist, saw what happened next, and being a horse was in no position to articulate its thoughts on the matter. Had it been able to do so it would have given as its opinion that one human ran toward another human carrying a huge metal stick while the other human quite calmly put his hand into his breast pocket. This was followed by a terrible scream, a gurgling noise and then silence.

  Willikins staggered to the side of the road and sat down on a stone, panting a little. Stratford certainly had been fast, no doubt about that. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, staring at nothing but the fog. Then he stood up, looked down at the shadow on the ground and said, “But not fast enough.” Then, like a good citizen, Willikins went back to see he if he could help the unlucky gentlemen of the law, who appeared to be in difficulties. You should always help the gentlemen of the law. Where would we be without them?

  The chief sub-editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times really hated poetry. He was a plain man and had devoted a large part of his career to keeping it out of his paper. But they were a cunning bunch, poets, and could sneak it up on you when your back was turned. And tonight, with the paper already so late that the lads downstairs were into overtime, he stared at the report just delivered by hand from Knatchbull Harrington, the paper’s music critic. A man of whom he was deeply suspicious. He turned to his deputy and waved the page angrily. “ ‘Whence came it, that ethereal music?’ See what I mean? What’s wrong with ‘Where did that music come from’? Bloody stupid introductory sentence in any case. And what does ethereal mean, anyway?”

  The deputy sub hesitated. “I think it means runny. Could be wrong.”

  The chief sub-editor stood in misery. “Definitely poetry!”

  Somebody had played some music that was very good. Apparently it made everybody amazed. Why didn’t that twit in his rather feminine purple silk shirts just write something like that? After all, it said everything that you needed to know, didn’t it? He took out his red pencil, and just as he was applying it to the wretched manuscript there was a sound on the metal staircase and Mr. de Worde, the editor, sta
ggered into the office, looking as if he had seen a ghost or, perhaps, a ghost had seen him.

  He looked groggily at the two puzzled men and managed to say, “Did Harrington send in his stuff?”

  The chief sub held out the offending stuff in front of him. “Yes, guv, a load of rubbish in my opinion.”

  De Worde grabbed it, read it with his lips moving and thrust it back at the man. “Don’t you dare change a single word. Front page, Bugsy, and I hope to hell that Otto got an iconograph.”

  “Yessir, but, sir—”

  “And don’t bloody argue!” screamed De Worde. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my office.”

  He clattered on up the stairs while the sub-editor and his deputy stood gloomily reading Knatchbull Harrington’s copy again. It began:

  Whence came it, that ethereal music, from what hidden grot or secret cell? From what dark cave? From what window into paradise? We watched the tiny figure under the spotlight and the music poured over us, sometimes soothing, sometimes blessing, sometimes accusing. Every one of us confronting ghosts, demons and old memories. The recital by Tears of the Mushroom, a young lady of the goblin persuasion, took but half an hour or, perhaps, it took a lifetime, and then it was over, to a silence which spread and grew and expanded until at last it exploded. Every single patron standing and clapping their hands raw, tears running down our faces. We had been taken somewhere and brought back and we were different people, longing for another journey into paradise, no matter what hell we had to atone for on the way.

  The chief sub and his deputy looked at each other with what Knatchbull would certainly have called a “wild surmise.” At last, the deputy sub-editor ventured, “I think he liked it.”