Feet of Clay (23 page)

There was a crash up ahead, and a dwarf came through a window more or less horizontally. His iron helmet struck sparks as he hit the street, but the dwarf was soon up again and plunging back through the adjacent doorway.

He emerged via the window a moment later but was fielded by Carrot, who set him on his feet.

‘Hello, Mr Oresmiter! Are you keeping well? And what is happening here?’

‘It’s that devil Gimlet, Captain Carrot! You should be arresting him!’

‘Why, what’s he done?’

‘He’s been poisoning people, that’s what!’

Carrot glanced at Angua, then back at Oresmiter. ‘Poison?’ he said. ‘That’s a very serious allegation.’

‘You’re telling me! I was up all night with Mrs Oresmiter! I didn’t think much about it until I came in here this morning and there were other people complaining—’

He tried to struggle out of Carrot’s grip. ‘You
know
what?’ he said. ‘You know
what
? We looked in his cold room and you know what? You know
what
? You know what he’s been selling as meat?’

‘Tell me,’ said Carrot.

‘Pork and beef!’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘And lamb!’

‘Tch, tch.’

‘Hardly any rat at all!’

Carrot shook his head at the duplicity of traders.

‘And Snori Glodssonsunclesson said he had Rat Surprise last night and he’ll swear there were
chicken
bones in it!’

Carrot let go of the dwarf. ‘You stay here,’ he said to Angua and, head bowed, stepped inside Gimlet’s Hole Food Delicatessen.

An axe spun towards him. He caught it almost absent-mindedly and tossed it casually aside.

‘Ow!’

There was a mêlée of dwarfs around the counter. The row had already gone well past the stage when it had anything much to do with the subject in hand and, these being dwarfs, now included matters of vital importance such as whose grandfather had stolen whose grandfather’s mining claim three hundred years ago and whose axe was at whose throat right now.

But there was something about Carrot’s presence. The fighting gradually stopped. The fighters tried to look as if they’d just happened to be standing there. There was a sudden and general ‘Axe? What axe? Oh,
this
axe? I was just showing it
to
my friend Bjorn here, good old Bjorn’ feel to the atmosphere.

‘All right,’ said Carrot. ‘What’s all this about poison? Mr Gimlet first.’

‘It’s a diabolical lie!’ shouted Gimlet, from somewhere under the heap. ‘I run a wholesome restaurant! My tables are so clean you could eat your dinner off them!’

Carrot raised his hands to stop the outburst this caused. ‘Someone said something about rats,’ he said.

‘I told them, I use only the very best rats!’ shouted Gimlet. ‘Good plump rats from the best locations! None of your latrine rubbish! And they’re hard to come by, let me tell you!’

‘And when you can’t get them, Mr Gimlet?’ said Carrot.

Gimlet paused. Carrot was hard to lie to. ‘All right,’ he mumbled. ‘Maybe when there’s not enough I might sort of plump out the stock with some chicken, maybe just a bit of beef—’

‘Hah! A
bit
?’ More voices were raised.

‘That’s right, you should see his cold room, Mr Carrot!’

‘Yeah, he uses
steak
and cuts little legs in it and covers it with rat sauce!’

‘I don’t know, you try to do your best at very reasonable prices and this is the thanks you get?’ said Gimlet hotly. ‘It’s hard enough to make ends meet as it is!’

‘
You
don’t even make ’em of the
right
meat!’

Carrot sighed. There were no public health laws
in
Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.

‘All
right
,’ he said. ‘But you can’t get poisoned by steak. No, honestly. No. No,
shut up
, all of you. No, I don’t care
what
your mothers told you. Now, I want to know about this poisoning, Gimlet.’

Gimlet struggled to his feet.

‘We did Rat Surprise last night for the Sons of Bloodaxe annual dinner,’ he said. There was a general groan. ‘And it
was
rat.’ He raised his voice against the complaining. ‘You can’t use anything else –
listen
– you’ve got to have the noses poking through the pastry, all right? Some of the best rat we’ve had in for a long time, let me tell you!’

‘And you were all ill afterwards?’ said Carrot, taking out his notebook.

‘Sweating all night!’

‘Couldn’t see straight!’

‘I reckon I know every knothole on the back of the privy door!’

‘I’ll write that down as a “definitely”,’ said Carrot. ‘Was there anything else on the dinner menu?’

‘Vole-au-vents and Cream of Rat,’ said Gimlet. ‘All hygienically prepared.’

‘How do you mean, “hygienically prepared”?’ said Carrot.

‘The chef is under strict orders to wash his hands afterwards.’

The assembled dwarfs nodded. This was certainly pretty hygienic. You didn’t want people going around with ratty hands.

‘Anyway, you’ve all been eating here for
years
,’ said Gimlet, sensing this slight veer in his direction. ‘This is the first time there’s been any trouble, isn’t it? My rats are famous!’

‘Your chicken’s going to be pretty famous, too,’ said Carrot.

There was laughter this time. Even Gimlet joined in. ‘All right, I’m sorry about the chicken. But it was that or very poor rats, and you know I only buy from Wee Mad Arthur. He’s trustworthy, whatever else you may say about him. You just can’t get better rats. Everyone knows that.’

‘That’ll be Wee Mad Arthur in Gleam Street?’ said Carrot.

‘Yes. Not a mark on ’em, most of the time.’

‘Have you got any left?’

‘One or two.’ Gimlet’s expression changed. ‘Here, you don’t think
he
poisoned them, do you? I never did trust that little bugger!’

‘Enquiries are continuing,’ said Carrot. He tucked his notebook away. ‘I’d like some rats, please.
Those
rats. To go.’ He glanced at the menu, patted his pocket and looked questioningly out through the door at Angua.

‘You don’t have to
buy
them,’ she said wearily. ‘They’re
evidence
.’

‘We can’t defraud an innocent tradesman who may be the victim of circumstances,’ said Carrot.

‘You want ketchup?’ said Gimlet. ‘Only they’re extra with ketchup.’

The funeral carriage went slowly through the streets. It looked quite expensive, but that was Cockbill Street for you. People put money by. Vimes remembered that. You always put money by, in Cockbill Street. You saved up for a rainy day even if it was pouring already. And you’d die of shame if people thought you could afford only a cheap funeral.

Half a dozen black-clad mourners came along behind, together with perhaps a score of people who had tried at least to look respectable.

Vimes followed the procession at a distance all the way to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods, where he lurked awkwardly among the gravestones and sombre graveyard trees while the priest mumbled on.

The gods had made the people of Cockbill Street poor, honest and provident, Vimes reflected. They might as well have hung signs saying ‘Kick me’ on their backs and had done with it. Yet Cockbill Street people tended towards religion, at least of the less demonstrative kind. They always put a little life by for a rainy eternity.

Eventually the crowd around the graves broke up and drifted away with the aimless look of people whose immediate future contains ham rolls.

Vimes spotted a tearful young woman in the main group and advanced carefully. ‘Er … are you Mildred Easy?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Who are you?’ She took in the cut of his coat and added, ‘sir?’

Was that old Mrs Easy who used to do dressmaking?’ said Vimes, taking her gently aside.

‘That’s right …’

‘And the … smaller coffin?’

‘That was our William …’

The girl looked as if she were about to cry again.

‘Can we have a talk?’ said Vimes. ‘There are some things I hope you can tell me.’

He hated the way his mind worked. A proper human being would have shown respect and quietly walked away. But, as he’d stood among the chilly stones, a horrible apprehension had stolen over him that almost all the answers were in place now, if only he could work out the questions.

She looked around at the other mourners. They had reached the gate and were staring back curiously at the two of them.

‘Er … I know this isn’t the right time,’ said Vimes. ‘But, when the kids play hopscotch in the street, what’s the rhyme they sing? “Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper?”, isn’t it?’

She stared at his worried grin. ‘That’s a skipping rhyme,’ she said coldly. ‘When they play hopscotch they sing “Billy Skunkins is a brass stud”. Who are you?’

‘I’m Commander Vimes of the Watch,’ said Vimes. So … Willy Scuggins would live on in the street, in disguise and in a fashion … And old Stoneface was just some guy on a bonfire …

Then her tears came.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ said Vimes, as soothingly as he could. ‘I was brought up in Cockbill Street, that’s why I … I mean I’m … I’m not here on … I’m not out to … look, I
know
you
took food home from the palace. That’s all right by me. I’m
not
here to … oh, damn, would you like my handkerchief? I think your one’s full.’

‘Everyone does it!’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Anyway, cook never says nothing …’ She began to sob again.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Everyone takes a few things,’ said Mildred Easy. ‘It’s not like
stealing
.’

It is
, thought Vimes treacherously.
But I don’t give a damn
.

And now … he’d got a grip on the long copper rod and was climbing into a high place while the thunder muttered around him. ‘The, er, the last food you sto— were given,’ he said. ‘What was it?’

‘Just some blancmange and some, you know, that sort of jam made out of meat …’

‘Pâté?’

‘Yes. I thought it would be a little treat …’

Vimes nodded. Rich, mushy food. The sort you’d give to a baby who was peaky and to a granny who hadn’t got any teeth.

Well, he was on the roof now, the clouds were black and threatening, and he might as well wave the lightning conductor. Time to ask …

The wrong question, as it proved.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what did Mrs Easy die of?’

‘Let me put it like this,’ said Cheery. ‘If these rats had been poisoned with lead instead of arsenic,
you’d
have been able to sharpen their noses and use them as a pencil.’

She lowered the beaker.

‘Are you sure?’ said Carrot.

‘Yes.’

‘Wee Mad Arthur wouldn’t poison rats, would he? Especially not rats that were going to be eaten.’

‘I’ve heard he doesn’t like dwarfs much,’ said Angua.

‘Yes, but business is business.
No one
who does a lot of business with dwarfs likes them much, and he must supply every dwarf café and delicatessen in the city.’

‘Maybe they ate arsenic before he caught them?’ said Angua. ‘People use it as a rat poison, after all …’

‘Yes,’ said Carrot, in a very deliberate way. ‘They do.’

‘You’re not suggesting that
Vetinari
tucks into a nice rat every day?’ said Angua.

‘I’ve heard he uses rats as spies, so I don’t think he uses them as elevenses,’ said Carrot. ‘But it’d be nice to know where Wee Mad Arthur gets his from, don’t you think?’

‘Commander Vimes said
he
was looking after the Vetinari case,’ said Angua.

‘But we’re just finding out why Gimlet’s rats are full of arsenic,’ said Carrot, innocently. ‘Anyway, I was going to ask Sergeant Colon to look into it.’

‘But … Wee Mad Arthur?’ said Angua. ‘He’s mad.’

‘Fred can take Nobby with him. I’ll go and tell him. Um. Cheery?’

‘Yes, Captain?’

‘You’ve been, er, you’ve been trying to hide your face from me … oh. Did someone hit you?’

‘No, sir!’

‘Only your eyes look a bit bruised and your lips—’

‘I’m fine, sir!’ said Cheery desperately.

‘Oh, well, if you say so. I’ll … er, I’ll … look for Sergeant Colon, then …’

He backed out, embarrassed.

That left the two of them.
All girls together
, thought Angua.
One normal girl between the two of us, at any rate
.

‘I don’t think the mascara works,’ Angua said. ‘The lipstick’s fine but the mascara … I don’t think so.’

‘I think I need practice.’

‘You sure you want to keep the beard?’

‘You don’t mean …
shave
?’ Cheery backed away.

‘All right, all right. What about the iron helmet?’

‘It belonged to my grandmother! It’s
dwarfish
!’

‘Fine. Fine. Okay. You’ve made a good start, anyway.’

‘Er … what do you think of … this?’ said Cheery, handing her a bit of paper.

Angua read it. It was a list of names, although most of them were crossed out:

Cheery Littlebottom

Cherry

Sherry

Sherri

Lucinda Littlebottom

Sharry

Sharri

Cheri

‘Er … what do you think?’ said Cheery nervously.

‘“Lucinda”?’ said Angua, raising her eyebrows.

‘I’ve always liked the sound of the name.’

‘“Cheri” is nice,’ said Angua. ‘And it
is
rather like the one you’ve got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.’

Cheery’s shoulders sagged with released tension. When you’ve made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it’s a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper.

‘
Cheri
’, thought Angua.
Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard?

Well, it does now
.

Somewhere underneath Ankh-Morpork a rat went about its business, ambling unconcernedly through the ruins of a damp cellar. It turned a corner towards the grain store it knew was up ahead, and almost walked into another rat.