Snuff

well, chief constable!’

‘Only, I don’t like the dark, sir, never have … Er, do you think anyone’ll worry if I have a wee up against the wall?’

‘I should go ahead if I was you, lad. I don’t think anything could make this place smell worse.’

Vimes heard some vague sounds behind him, and then Feeney said, in a damp little voice, ‘Er, nature has taken its course, sir. Sorry, sir.’

Vimes smiled to himself. ‘Don’t worry, lad, you won’t be the first copper to have to wring out his socks, and you won’t be the last, either. I remember the first time I had to arrest a troll. Big fellow, he was, a very nasty character. I was a bit damp around the socks that day, and I don’t mind admitting it. Think of it as a kind of baptism!’ Keep it jolly, he thought, make a joke of it. Don’t let him dwell on the fact that we’re walking into the scene of a crime that he can’t see. ‘Funny thing – that troll is now my best sergeant, and I’ve relied on him for my life quite a few times. That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we’ll never know.’

Vimes turned a corner and there were the goblins. He was glad that young Feeney couldn’t see them. Strictly speaking, Vimes wished he couldn’t see them either. There must have been a hundred of them, many of them holding weapons. They were crude weapons, to be sure, but a flint axe hitting your head does not need a degree in physics.

‘Have we got somewhere, sir?’ said Feeney behind him. ‘You’ve stopped walking.’

They’re just standing there, Vimes thought, as if they’re on parade. Just watching in silence, waiting for that silence to break.

‘There are a few goblins in this cave, lad, and they’re watching us.’

After a few seconds of silence Feeney said, ‘Could you tell me exactly what “a few” means, sir?’

Dozens and dozens of owlish faces stared at Vimes without expression. If the silence was going to be broken by the word ‘charge’ then he and Feeney would be smears on the floor, which was pretty smeared as it was. Why did I come in here? Why did I think it was a good thing to do? Oh well, the lad is a policeman, after all, and it isn’t as if he doesn’t already have a clothing problem. He said, ‘I would say there are about a hundred, lad, all heavily armed, as far as I can see, except for a couple of broken-down ones right at the front; could be chieftains, I suppose. Beards you could keep a rabbit in, and, by the look of it, may have. It looks as if they are waiting for something.’

There was a pause before Feeney said, ‘It’s been an education, working with you, sir.’

‘Look,’ said Vimes, ‘if I have to turn and run, just hang on, okay? Running is another skill a policeman sometimes needs.’

He turned to the crowd of impassive goblins and said, ‘I am Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch! How can I help you?’

‘Just ice!’ The cry caused things to drop from the ceiling. It echoed around the cave and echoed again, as cavern after cavern picked up the shout, spun it around, and sent it back. Light rose as torches were kindled. It took Vimes a few moments to realize this, because the light he had seen, some curious artificial light that was probably in his head, had been brighter, and mixed strangely with the smoky orange that was now filling the cave.

‘Well, sir, it looks as though they’re pleased to see us, yes?’

Feeney’s relief and hope should have been bottled and sold to despairing people everywhere. Vimes just nodded, because the ranks were pulling apart, leaving a pathway of sorts, at the end of which there was, inarguably, a corpse. It was a mild relief to see that it was a goblin corpse, but no corpse is good news, particularly when seen in a grimy low light and especially for the corpse. And yet something inside him exulted and cried Hallelujah!, because here was a corpse and he was a copper and this was a crime and this place was smoky and dirty and full of suspicious-looking goblins and here was a crime. His world. Yes, here was his world.

In the Ankh-Morpork City Watch forensic laboratory Igor was brewing coffee, to the accompaniment of distant rumblings, strange flashes of light and the smell of electricity. At last he pulled the big red lever and frothing brown liquid gurgled into a pot, to be subsequently delivered into two mugs, one of which carried the slogan ‘Igorth thtitch you up’, while the other was emblazoned with ‘Dwarfs do it slightly lower down’. He handed that one to Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom, whose previous experience as an alchemist meant that she sometimes did duty in the lab. But at this point the cosiness of morning coffee was interrupted by Nobby Nobbs, towing Sergeant Colon behind him. ‘The sergeant has had a bit of a shock, Igor, so I thought you might be able to help him.’

‘Well, I could give him another one,’ Igor volunteered, as Fred Colon slumped into a chair, which creaked ominously under his weight. The chair had straps on it.

‘Look,’ said Nobby, ‘I’m not mucking about! You’ve heard of the tobacco that counts? Well, he just had a cigar that cries. I’ve put it in this ’ere evidence bag, as per standing instructions.’

Cheery took the bag and peered inside. ‘It’s got egg sandwiches in it! Honestly, Nobby, has anyone explained to you what forensic means?’ On the basis that she probably couldn’t make things actually worse, Cheery emptied the sandwiches on to the table, where they were joined by one cigar with mayonnaise. She wiped this down with some care and looked at it. ‘Well, Nobby? I don’t smoke and I don’t know much about cigars, but this one appears to be quite happy at the moment.’

‘You have to hold it to your ear,’ said Nobby helpfully.

Cheery did so, and said, ‘All I can hear is the crinkling of the tobacco, which I suspect hasn’t been properly kept.’

The dwarf held the cigar away from her face and looked at it suspiciously, and then wordlessly she handed it to Igor, who put it to his ear, or at least the one that he was currently using, because you never know with Igors. They looked at one another and Igor broke the silence. ‘There are such things, I believe, as tobacco weevils?’

‘I’m sure there are,’ said Cheery, ‘but I doubt very much if they … chuckle?’

‘Chuckle? It sounded to me like somebody crying,’ said Igor, as he squinted at the bulging cigar, and added, ‘We should wash down the table and clean a scalpel and use the number-two tweezers and two, no, make that four sterilized surgical masks and gloves. It may be some kind of unusual insect in there.’

‘I held that cigar up to my ear,’ said Nobby. ‘What kind of insect are we talking about?’