Snuff

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.’

When 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 silver-work 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 cheese monger 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 chequerboard 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 grey, 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.’