Snuff (10 page)

Yes, no one had a good word to say about goblins, but Miss Beedle had no word to say at all. Her gaze remained firmly fixed on Vimes's face. You could read a dining table if you learned the knack and if you were a policeman then you could build a clear picture of what each diner thought about the others; it was all in the looks. The things said or not said. The people who were in the magic circle and the people who weren't. Miss Beedle was an outsider, tolerated, because obviously there is such a thing as good manners, but not exactly included. What was the phrase?
Not one of us.

Vimes realized that he was staring at Miss Beedle just as she was staring at him. They both smiled, and he thought that an inquisitive man would go and see the nice lady who had written the books that his little boy enjoyed so much and not because she looked like somebody prepared to blow so many whistles that it would sound like a pipe band.

Miss Beedle frowned a lot when the talk was about goblins, and occasionally people, especially the people he had tagged as Mrs. Colonel, would cast a look at her as one might glance at a child who was doing something wrong.

And so he maintained a nice exterior air of attention while at the same time sifting through the affairs of the day. The process was interrupted by Mrs. Colonel saying, “By the way, your grace, we were very pleased to hear that you gave Jefferson a drubbing this afternoon. The man is insufferable! He upsets people!”

“Well, I noticed that he's not afraid to air his views,” said Vimes, “but nor are we, are we?”

“But surely you of all people, your grace,” said the clergyman, looking up earnestly, “cannot possibly believe that Jack is as good as his master?”

“Depends on Jack. Depends on the master. Depends what you mean by good,” said Vimes. “I suppose I was a Jack, but when it comes to the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, I am the Master.”

Mrs. Colonel was about to answer when Lady Sybil said brightly, “Talking of which, Sam, I had a letter from a Mrs. Wainwright commending you highly. Remind me to show it to you.”

All long-term couples have their code. Classically there is one that the wife uses in polite conversation to warn her husband that, because of hasty dressing, or absent-mindedness, he is becoming exposed in the crotch department.
*

In the case of Vimes and Lady Sybil, any mention of Mrs. Wainwright was a code that meant, “If you don't stop annoying people, Sam Vimes, then there will be a certain amount of marital discord later this evening.”

But this time Sam Vimes wanted the last word, and said, “In fact, come to think of it, I know quite a few risen Jacks in various places, and let me tell you, they often make better masters than their erstwhile masters ever did. All they needed was a chance.”

“Do remind me to show you the letter, Sam!”

Vimes gave in, and the arrival of the ice-cream pudding lowered the temperature somewhat, especially since her ladyship made certain that everybody's glasses remained filled—and in the case of the colonel this meant an extremely regular top-up. Vimes would have liked to talk to him further, but he too was under wifely orders. The man had definitely had something important on his mind that caused the presence of a policeman to make him very nervous indeed. And the nervousness was apparently catching.

This wasn't a posh affair, by any means. Sybil had organized this little party before building up to anything more lavish, and some fairly amicable goodbyes were being said long before eleven. Vimes listened intently to the colonel and his wife as they walked, in his case unsteadily, to their carriage. All he heard, however, was a hissed, “You had the stable door open all evening!”

Followed by a growled, “But the horse was fast asleep, my dear.”

W
hen the last carriage had been waved away and the big front door firmly shut, Sybil said, “Well, Sam, I understand, I really do, but they were our guests.”

“I know, and I'm sorry, but it's as if they don't think. I just wanted to shake their ideas up a bit.”

Lady Sybil examined a sherry bottle and topped up her glass. “Surely you don't think that the blacksmith really had the right to fight you for this house?”

Sam wished that he could drink, right now. “No, of course not. I mean, there wouldn't be an end to it. People have been winning and losing on the old roulette wheel of fate for thousands of years. I know that, but you know that I think that if you're going to stop the wheel then you have to spare some thought for the poor buggers who're sitting on zero.”

His wife gently took his hand. “But we endowed the hospital, Sam. You know how expensive that is. Dr. Lawn will train up anyone who shows an aptitude for medicine, even if they, in his words, turn up with the arse hanging out of their trousers. He's even letting girls train! As
doctors
! He even employs Igorinas! We're changing things, Sam, a bit at a time, by helping people help themselves. And look at the Watch! These days a kid is proud to say that his father or even his mother is a watchman. And people need pride.”

Vimes grasped her hand. He said, “Thank you for being kind to the boy from Cockbill Street.”

She laughed this away. “I waited a long time for you to turn up, Samuel Vimes, and I don't intend to let you go to waste!”

This seemed to Sam Vimes a good time to say, “You don't mind if Willikins and I take a little stroll to Dead Man's Copse before I go to bed?”

Lady Sybil gave him the smile women give to husbands and small boys. “Well, I can hardly say no, and there is a strange atmosphere. I'm glad Willikins is involved. And it's very pleasant up there. Perhaps you'll hear the nightingale.”

Vimes gave her a little kiss before going up to change and said, “Actually, dear, I'm hoping to hear a canary.”

Probably no duke or even commander of the City Watch had found in their dressing room anything like that which lay on the bed of Sam Vimes right now. Pride of place was for a billhook, which was a useful agricultural implement. He had seen a couple of them being carried earlier in the day. He reminded himself that “agricultural implement” did not mean “not a weapon.” They turned up sometimes among the street gangs and were almost as much to be feared as a troll with a headache.

Then there was a truncheon. Vimes's own truncheon, which his manservant had thoughtfully brought along. Of course, it had silverwork on it because it was the ceremonial truncheon of the Commander of the Watch, and wasn't a weapon at all, oh dear me, no. On the other hand, Vimes knew himself not to be a cheesemonger and therefore it would be somewhat difficult to explain why he had a foot of cheesewire about his person. That was going to stay here, but he'd take the billhook. It was a pretty poor lookout if a man walking on his own land couldn't take the opportunity to trim a branch or two. But what to make of the pile of bamboo which resolved itself into a breastplate of articulated sections and a most unfetching bamboo helmet? There was a small note on the bed. It said, in Willikins' handwriting,
“The gamekeeper's friend, commander. Yours too!!!”

Vimes grunted and hit the breastplate with his truncheon. It flexed like a living thing and the truncheon bounced across the room.

Well, we live and learn, Vimes thought, or perhaps more importantly, we learn and live. He crept downstairs and let himself out into the night…which was a checkerboard of black and white. He'd forgotten that outside the city, where the smogs, smokes and steams rendered the world into a thousand shades of gray, out in places like this there was black and white, and, if you were looking for a metaphor, there was one, right there.

He knew the way to the hill, you couldn't miss it. The moon illuminated the way as if it had wanted to make things easier for him. Actual agriculture ran out around here. The fields gave way to furze, and to turf nibbled by rabbits into something resembling the baize of a snooker table…although given that rabbits did other things than just eat grass, he would play snooker with a lot of very small balls. Bunnies scattered as he climbed and he worried that he was making too much noise, but it was his land and therefore this
was
just a walk in the park. So he walked a little more jauntily, following what seemed to be the only path, and saw, in the moonlight, the gibbet.

Well, he thought, it says Dead Man's Copse on the map, doesn't it? They used to do a lot of things like this in the old days, didn't they? And the metal cage was just there to keep the corpses upright so that the ravens didn't have to kneel. Good old-fashioned policing, you could call it, if you wanted to chill a spine or two. A pile of crumbling ancient bones at the foot of the gibbet testified to the old-fashioned policing at work.

Vimes felt the stealthy movement of a knife on the hairs of his neck.

A moment later Willikins got up off the ground and fastidiously brushed dirt from his clothing. “Oh, well done, sir!” he said, wheezing a little, owing to the shortness of breath. “I can see that I can't put anything across you, commander.” He stopped, held his hand up to his nose and sniffed. “Blow me down, commander! There's blood all over my clothes! You didn't stick me, did you, sir? You just spun round and kicked me in the nuts, which I may say, sir, was done most expertly.”

Vimes sniffed. You learned to smell blood. It smelled like metal. Now, people would say that metal doesn't smell, it does, but it smells like blood.

“You got up here on time?” said Vimes.

“Yes, sir. Didn't see a living soul.” Willikins knelt down. “Didn't see a thing. Wouldn't have seen the blood if you hadn't kicked me into a puddle of it. It's all over the place.”

I wish I had Igor here, thought Vimes. These days he handed over the forensic to the experts. On the other hand, you acquired a forensics skill of your own and beyond the smell of blood he could smell butchery and unbelievable coincidence. Everybody sees everything in the countryside. Jefferson was going to meet Vimes, but here there was a definite shortage of Jefferson and no shortage whatsoever of blood while, at the same time, a noticeable absence of corpse. Vimes' brain worked through things methodically. Of course, you took it for granted that if a citizen was surreptitiously going to tell a policeman a secret it was likely that somebody did not wish said citizen to say said thing. And if said citizen was found dead then said policeman, who had been seen to have a scrap with him earlier, might just be considered to be a tiny bit guilty when all is said and done, and while all was being said and all was being done, someone really intent on getting Vimes into difficulties would have left the corpse of the blacksmith there, wouldn't they?

“Found something, sir,” said Willikins, straightening up.

“You what?”

“Found something, sir, felt along the ground, as you might say.”

“But it's soaked with blood, man!”

This didn't seem to worry Willikins. “Never minded blood, commander, leastways when it wasn't mine.” There was some scrabbling, then light appeared: Willikins had shifted the trap door of a dark lantern. He handed it to Vimes and then held something small to the glow. “It's a ring, sir. Looks like it's been made of stone.”

“What? You mean it's a stone with a hole in it?”

He heard Willikins sigh. “No, sir, it's polished smooth. And there's a claw in it. Looks like goblin to me.”

Vimes thought, all that blood. Severed claw. Goblins aren't that big. Somebody bothered to come up here to kill a goblin. Where's the rest of it?

In theory, moonlight should help the search, but moonlight is deceptive, creating shadows where shadows should not be, and the wind was getting up. Dark lantern or not, there was little he could do here.

T
he curtains were drawn and a few lights still burned in the Goblin's Head. Apparently, there were licensing laws. A good copper should always be ready to test the strength of them. He led the way round to the back of the pub and knocked on the little wooden sliding panel set into the building's back door. After a few moments Jiminy pulled the sliding panel aside and Vimes stuck his hand in the hole before the man could close it again.

“Not you, please, your grace, the magistrates would have my guts for garters!”

“And I'm sure they'll be very decorative,” said Vimes, “but it won't happen, because I'll warrant that about a third of your regular customers are still imbibing intoxicating liquors at this hour, and probably at least one magistrate is among them…No, I take back that last remark. Magistrates do their drinking at home, where there are no licensing laws. I won't say a word, but it'll be a bad old day for the job if a thirsty copper can't mump a night-time beverage from a former colleague.” He slapped some coins on the tiny shelf inside the little panel and added, “That should buy a double brandy for my man here, and for me the address of Mr. Jefferson, the smith.”

“You can't treat me like this, you know.”

Vimes looked at Willikins. “Can I?”

The gentleman's gentleman cleared his throat. “We are now in the world of feudal law, commander. You own the ground this public house stands on, but he has rights as strong as your own. If he has paid his rent, then you can't even go into the property without his permission.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Well, commander, as you know, I've had one or two holidays in the Tanty in my time, and one thing about prison is there are always a lot of books about the law lying around, criminals being very keen on going through the old legal smallprint, just in case it turns out that giving a rival gang member some cement boots and dropping him in the river might be legal after all. That kind of learning sticks.”

“But I'm investigating a mysterious disappearance now. The blacksmith was very keen to see me up the hill, but when I got up there there was nothing but a load of blood all over the place. Jefferson wanted to tell me something and you must know what that smells like to a copper.”
Even though I'm not sure
, said Vimes to himself. “Definitely something iffy, that's for sure.”

The landlord shrugged. “Not my business, squire.”

Vimes's hand gripped the landlord's wrist before the man could pull it away and tugged him so hard that his face was up against the woodwork.

“Don't you squire me. There's something going down here, something wrong; I can feel it in my boots and, believe me, they are the most sensitive boots that ever were. The man who runs the village pub knows everything—I know that and so do you. If you're not on my side you're in my way and you know something, I can see it in your eyes. If it turns out you knew something of importance about the blacksmith you'll have invited yourself to be an accessory after the fact, with a free option, if I can get the bit between my teeth, of before the fact, which leaves you right in the middle, and that's a fact.”

Jiminy wriggled, but Vimes's grip was steely. “Your badge doesn't work here, Mr. Vimes, you know that!”

Vimes heard the tiny whine of fear in the man's voice, but old coppers were tough. If you weren't tough, you never became an old copper. “I'm going to let go,
sir
,” said Vimes, which is policeman's code for “trembling arsehole.” “You think that legally around here I don't have a leg to stand on. This may or may not be true, but my man here is not a policeman and is not accustomed to doing things nicely like we in the job do, and you might end up without a leg to stand on as well. I'm telling you this as a friend. We both know this game, eh? I expect you were working in the bar when the goblin was killed, yes?”

“I didn't know a bloody goblin was killed, did I? So how would I know when it may or may not have happened? My advice,
sir
,” said Jiminy, with the same coded inflection that Vimes had used, “would be to report the matter to the authorities in the morning. That would be young Feeney, calls himself a copper. Look, I came here to retire, Vimes, and staying alive is part of that. I do not poke my nose into that which does not concern me. And I know there's a lot of things that you could do and I know you ain't going to do them, but just so's you don't go home empty-handed, Jethro lives where all blacksmiths live, right in the center of the village overlooking the green. He lives with his old mum, so I wouldn't disturb her at this time of night. And now, gents, I'd better shut the pub. Don't want to break the law.”

The panel slid back, and there was the sound of a bolt slotting into place. A moment later, to the time-honored cry of “Ain't you lot got no homes to go to?” they heard the front door open and the lane filled with men trying to get their brains to go in the direction of their feet, or vice versa.

In the shadows of the pub's back yard, which smelled of old barrels, Willikins said, “Would you like to take a bet on whether your blacksmith is tucked up in his bed tonight, sir?”

“No,” said Vimes, “but this stinks to me. I think I've got a murder, but I haven't got a corpse, not all of it anyway,” he said, as Willikins opened his mouth. Vimes grunted. “For it to be definitely murder, Willikins, you need to be missing an important bit of you that you really need to stay alive, like your head. Okay, or like your blood, but it's difficult to collect that in the dark, isn't it?”

They set off, and Vimes said, “The one thing you can say about the dead is that they stay dead, well, generally speaking, and so…it's been a long day, and that's a long walk and old age is creeping on, okay?”

“Not very noticeably from the outside, commander,” said Willikins loyally.