Feet of Clay (16 page)

Condensation dripped off the artificial corpse.

‘Blow this for a lark,’ muttered Vimes, and tried to head back the way he came.

After ten seconds of blundering, he tripped over something.

It was a wooden corpse, hurled into the gutter.

When he got back to the gibbet, the empty chain was swinging gently, jingling in the fog.

Sergeant Colon tapped the golem’s chest. It went
donk
.

‘Like a flowerpot,’ said Nobby. ‘How can they move around when they’re like a pot, eh? They ought to keep cracking all the time.’

‘They’re daft, too,’ said Colon. ‘I heard there was one over in Quirm who was made to dig a trench
and
they forgot about it and they only remembered it when there was all this water ’cos it had dug all the way to the river …’

Carrot unrolled the chem on the table, and laid beside it the paper that had been put in Father Tubelcek’s mouth.

‘It’s dead, is it?’ said Sergeant Colon.

‘It’s harmless,’ said Carrot, looking from one piece of paper to the other.

‘Right. I’ve got a sledgehammer round the back somewhere, I’ll just …’

‘No,’ said Carrot.

‘You saw the way it was acting!’

‘I don’t think it could actually have hit me. I think it just wanted to scare us.’

‘It worked!’

‘Look at these, Fred.’

Sergeant Colon glanced at the desk. ‘Foreign writing,’ he said, in a voice which suggested that it was nothing like as good as decent home writing, and probably smelled of garlic.

‘Anything strike you about them?’

‘Well … they looks the same,’ Sergeant Colon conceded.

‘This yellowing one is Dorfl’s chem. The other one is from Father Tubelcek,’ said Carrot. ‘Letter for letter the same.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I
think
Dorfl wrote these words and put them in old Tubelcek’s mouth after the poor man died,’ said Carrot slowly, still looking from one piece of paper to the other.

‘Urgh, yuk,’ said Nobby. ‘That’s
mucky
, that is …’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Carrot. ‘I mean he wrote them because they were the only ones he knew that worked …’

‘Worked how?’

‘Well … you know the kiss of life?’ said Carrot. ‘I mean first aid? I know
you
know, Nobby. You came with me when they had that course at the YMPA.’

‘I only went ’cos you said you got a free cup of tea and a biscuit,’ said Nobby sulkily. ‘Anyway, the dummy ran away when it was my turn.’

‘It’s the same with life-saving, too,’ said Carrot. ‘We want people to breathe, so we try to make sure they’ve got some air in them …’

They all turned to look at the golem.

‘But golems don’t breathe,’ said Colon.

‘No, a golem knows only one thing that keeps you alive,’ said Carrot. ‘It’s the words in your head.’ They all turned back to look at the words.

They all turned to look at the statue that was Dorfl.

‘It’s gone all cold in here,’ Nobby quavered. ‘I def’nitly felt a
aura
flick’rin’ in the air just then! It was like someone …’

‘What’s going on?’ said Vimes, shaking the damp off his cloak.

‘… openin’ the door,’ said Nobby.

It was ten minutes later.

Sergeant Colon and Nobby had gone off-duty, to everyone’s relief. Colon in particular had great difficulty with the idea that you went on investigating after someone had confessed. It outraged his training and experience. You got a confession and there it ended. You didn’t go around
disbelieving
people. You disbelieved people only when they said they were innocent. Only guilty people were trustworthy. Anything else struck at the whole basis of policing.

‘White clay,’ said Carrot. ‘It was white clay we found. And practically unbaked. Dorfl’s made of dark terracotta, and rock-hard.’

‘The last thing the old priest saw was a golem,’ said Vimes.

‘Dorfl, I’m sure,’ said Carrot. ‘But that’s not the same as saying Dorfl was the murderer. I think he turned up as the man was dying, that’s all.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘I’m … not sure yet. But I’ve seen Dorfl around. He’s always seemed a very gentle person.’

‘It works in a slaughterhouse!’

‘Maybe that’s not a bad place for a gentle person to work, sir,’ said Carrot. ‘Anyway, I’ve checked up all the records I can find and I don’t think a golem has ever attacked anyone. Or committed any kind of crime.’

‘Oh, come
on
,’ said Vimes. ‘Everyone knows …’ He stopped as his cynical ears heard his incredulous voice. ‘What,
never
?’

‘Oh, people are always saying that they know
someone
who had a friend whose grandfather heard of one killing someone, and that’s about as real as it gets, sir. Golems aren’t
allowed
to hurt people. It’s in their words.’

‘They give me the willies, I know that,’ said Vimes.

‘They give everyone the willies, sir.’

‘You hear lots of stories about them doing stupid things like making a thousand teapots or digging a hole five miles deep,’ said Vimes.

‘Yes, but that’s not exactly criminal activity, is it, sir?
That
’s just ordinary rebellion.’

‘What do you mean, “rebellion”?’

‘Dumbly obeying orders, sir. You know … someone shouts at it “Go and make teapots”, so it does. Can’t be blamed for obeying orders, sir. No one told them how many. No one wants them to think, so they get their own back by
not
thinking.’

‘They rebel by
working
?’

‘It’s just a thought, sir. It’d make more sense to a golem, I expect.’

Automatically, they turned again to look at the silent shape of the golem.

‘Can it hear us?’ said Vimes.

‘I don’t think so, sir.’

‘This business with the words …?’

‘Er … I think
they
think a dead human is just someone who’s lost his chem. I don’t think they understand how we work, sir.’

‘Them and me both, Captain.’

Vimes stared at the hollow eyes. The top of Dorfl’s head was still open so that light shone down
through
the sockets. Vimes had seen many horrible things on the street, but the silent golem was somehow worse. You could too easily imagine the eyes flaring and the thing standing up and striding forward, fists flailing like sledgehammers. It was more than just his imagination. It seemed to be built into the things. A
potentiality
, biding its time.

That’s why we all hate ’em
, he thought.
Those expressionless eyes watch us, those big faces turn to follow us, and doesn’t it just look as if they’re making notes and taking names? If you heard that one had bashed in someone’s head over in Quirm or somewhere, wouldn’t you just love to believe it?

A voice inside, a voice which generally came to him only in the quiet hours of the night or, in the old days, half-way down a whisky bottle, added:
Given how we use them, maybe we’re scared because we know we deserve it
…

No … there’s nothing behind those eyes. There’s just clay and magic words
.

Vimes shrugged. ‘I chased a golem earlier,’ he said. ‘It was standing on the Brass Bridge. Damn thing. Look, we’ve got a confession and the eyeball evidence. If you can’t come up with anything better than a … a feeling, then we’ll have to—’

‘To what, sir?’ said Carrot. ‘There
isn’t
anything more we could do to him. He’s dead now.’

‘Inanimate, you mean.’

‘Yes, sir. If you want to put it that way.’

‘If Dorfl didn’t kill the old men, who did?’

‘Don’t know, sir. But I think Dorfl does. Maybe he was following the murderer.’

‘Could it have been ordered to protect someone?’

‘Maybe, sir. Or he decided to.’

‘You’ll be telling me it’s got emotions next. Where’s Angua gone?’

‘She thought she’d check a few things, sir,’ said Carrot. ‘I was … puzzled about this, sir. It was in his hand.’ He held the object up.

‘A piece of matchstick?’

‘Golems don’t smoke and they don’t use fire, sir. It’s just … odd that he should have the thing, sir.’

‘Oh,’ said Vimes, sarcastically. ‘A Clue.’

Dorfl’s trail was
the
word on the street. The mixed smells of the slaughterhouse filled Angua’s nostrils.

The journey zigzagged, but with a certain directional tendency. It was as if the golem had laid a ruler across the town and taken every road and alley that went in the right direction.

She came to a short blind alley. There were some warehouse gates at the end. She sniffed. There were plenty of other smells, too. Dough. Paint. Grease. Pine resin. Sharp, loud, fresh scents. She sniffed again. Cloth? Wool?

There was a confusion of footprints in the dirt. Large footprints.

The small part of Angua that always walked on two legs saw that the footprints coming out were on top of the footprints going in. She snuffled around. Up to twelve creatures, each with their own very distinctive smell – the smell of
merchandise
rather than living creatures – had all very recently gone
down
the stairwell. And all twelve had come back up.

She went down the steps and was met by an impenetrable barrier.

A door.

Paws were no good at doorknobs.

She peered over the top of the steps. There was no one around. Only the fog hung between the buildings.

She concentrated and
changed
, leaned against the wall for a moment until the world stopped spinning, and tried the door.

There was a large cellar beyond. Even with a werewolf’s eyesight there wasn’t much to see.

She had to stay human. She thought better when she was human. Unfortunately, here and now, as a human, the thought occupying her mind in no small measure was that she was naked. Anyone finding a naked woman in their cellar would be bound to ask questions. They might not even bother with questions, even ones like ‘Please?’ Angua could certainly deal with that situation, but she preferred not to have to. It was so difficult explaining away the shape of the wounds.

No time to waste, then.

The walls were covered in writing. Big letters, small letters, but all in that neat script which the golems used. There were phrases in chalk and paint and charcoal, and in some cases simply cut into the stone itself. They reached from floor to ceiling, criss-crossing one another over and over again so often that it was almost impossible to make out
what
any of them were meant to say. Here and there a word or two stood out in the jumble of letters:

… SHALT NOT … WHAT HE DOES IS NOT … RAGE AT THE CREATOR … WOE UNTO THE MASTERLESS … WORDS IN THE … CLAY OF OUR … LET MY … BRING US TO FRE …

The dust in the middle of the floor was scuffed, as if a number of people had been milling around. She crouched down and rubbed the dirt, occasionally sniffing her finger. Smells. They were industrial smells. She hardly needed special senses to detect them. A golem didn’t smell of anything except clay and whatever it was it was working with at the time …

And … something rolled under her fingers. It was a length of wood, only a couple of inches long. A matchstick, without a head.

A few minutes’ investigation found another ten, lying here and there as if they’d been idly dropped.

There was also half a stick, tossed away some distance from the others.

Her night vision was fading. But sense of smell lasted much longer. Smells were strong on the sticks – the same cocktail of odours that had trailed into this damp room. But the slaughterhouse smell she’d come to associate with Dorfl was on only the broken piece.

She sat back on her haunches and looked at the little heap of wood. Twelve people (twelve people in messy jobs) had come here. They hadn’t stayed long. They’d had a … a
discussion
: the writing on the wall. They’d done something involving eleven matches (just the wooden part – they hadn’t been
dipped
to get the head. Maybe the pine-smelling golem worked in a match factory?) plus one broken match.

Then they’d all left and gone their separate ways.

Dorfl’s way had taken him straight to the main Watch House to give himself up.

Why?

She sniffed at the piece of broken match again. There was no doubt about that cocktail of blood and meat smells.

Dorfl had given himself up for murder …

She stared at the writing on the wall, and shivered.

‘Cheers, Fred,’ said Nobby, raising his pint.

‘We can put the money back in the Tea Club tomorrow. No one’ll miss it,’ said Sergeant Colon. ‘Anyway, this comes under the heading of an emergency.’

Corporal Nobbs looked despondently into his glass. People often did this in the Mended Drum, when the immediate thirst had been slaked and for the first time they could take a good look at what they were drinking.

‘What am I going to
do
?’ he moaned. ‘If you’re a nob you got to wear coronets and long robes and that. Got to cost a mint, that kind of stuff. And there’s stuff you’ve got to do.’ He took another long swig. ‘’S called
knobless obleeje
.’

‘
Nobblyesse obligay
,’ corrected Colon. ‘Yeah. Means you got to keep your end up in society.
Giving
money to charities. Being kind to the poor. Passing your ole clothes to your gardener when there’s still some good wear left in ’em. I know about that. My uncle was butler to ole Lady Selachii.’

‘Ain’t got a gardener,’ said Nobby gloomily. ‘Ain’t got a garden. Ain’t got ’ny ole clothes except what I’m wearin’.’ He took another swig. ‘She gave her ole clothes to the gardener, did she?’

Colon nodded. ‘Yeah. We were always a bit puzzled about that gardener.’ He caught the barman’s eye. ‘Two more pints of Winkles, Ron.’ He glanced at Nobby. His old friend looked more dejected than he’d ever seen him. They’d have to see this thing through together. ‘Better make that two for Nobby, too,’ he added.

‘Cheers, Fred.’

Sergeant Colon’s eyebrows raised as one pint was emptied almost in one go. Nobby put the mug down a little unsteadily.

‘Wouldn’t be so bad if there was a pot of cash,’ Nobby said, picking up the other mug. ‘I thought you couldn’t
be
a nob without bein’ a rich bugger. I thought they gave you a big wad with one hand and banged the crown on your head with the other. Don’t make
sense
, bein’ nobby
and
poor. S’worst of both wurble.’ He drained the mug and banged it down. ‘Common ’n’ rich, yeah, that I could hurble.’