Snuff

me this, my dad told me that I was a copper now and I was to look after Mum, and he gave me the truncheon and his badge. And then his hands started shaking, sir, and a few days later he was dead, sir. I reckon something snuck up on him, sir, in his head, like. It overcame him.’

‘Have you heard about Lord Vetinari, Feeney? I can’t say I like him all that much but sometimes he’s bang on the money. Well, there was a bit of a fracas, as we say, and it turned out that a man had a dog, a half-dead thing, according to bystanders, and he was trying to get it to stop pulling at its leash, and when it growled at him he grabbed an axe from the butcher’s stall beside him, threw the dog to the ground and cut off its back legs, just like that. I suppose people would say “Nasty bugger, but it was his dog”, and so on, but Lord Vetinari called me in and he said to me, “A man who would do something like that to a dog is a man to whom the law should pay close attention. Search his house immediately.” The man was hanged a week later, not for the dog, although for my part I wouldn’t have shed a tear if he had been, but for what we found in his cellar. The contents of which I will not burden you with. And bloody Vetinari got away with it again, because he was right: where there are little crimes, large crimes are not far behind.’

Vimes stared at the rolling acres stretching out below: his fields, his trees, his fields of yellow corn … All his, even though he’d never planted a seed in his life, except for the time when he was a kid and he tried to grow mustard and cress on a flannel, which he’d then thrown up because no one had told him he should have washed the flannel first to get all the soap out. Not a good background for a landowner. But … His land, right? And he was sure that neither he nor Sybil had ever said yes to turning a lot of sad-looking goblins out of the mess they were pleased to call a home and taking them to who knew where.

‘Nobody told us!’

Feeney leaned back to escape that particular ball of wrath. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir.’

Vimes stood up and stretched his arms. ‘I’ve heard enough, lad, and I’ve had enough too! It’s time to report to a higher authority!’

‘I think it’d take at least a day and a half to get a galloper to the city, sir, and you’d have to be lucky with horses.’

Sam Vimes began to walk smartly down the hill. ‘I was talking about Lady Sybil, lad.’

Sybil was in a drawing room full of teacups and ladies when Vimes arrived at the Hall in a run, with Feeney lagging behind. She took one look at him and said, rather more brightly than warranted, ‘Oh, I see you have something to discuss with me.’ She turned to the ladies, smiled and said, ‘Please do excuse me, ladies. I must just have a brief word with my husband.’ And with that she grabbed Vimes and pulled him none too gently back into the hallway. She opened her mouth to deliver a wifely sermon on the importance of punctuality, sniffed and recoiled. ‘Sam Vimes, you stink! Did you fall into something rural? I’ve hardly seen you since breakfast! And why are you still dragging that young policeman behind you? I’m sure he’s got something more important to do. Didn’t he want to arrest you? Is he still coming to tea? I hope he washes first.’ This was said to Vimes but aimed at Feeney, who was keeping his distance and looked ready to run.

‘That was a misunderstanding,’ said Vimes hastily, ‘and I’m sure that if I ever find out where my escutcheon is there won’t be a stain on it, but Mister Feeney here has been generously and of his own free will imparting information to me.’

And by the time the husband and wife conversation was in full swing, containing shouted whispers on the lines of ‘Surely not!’ and ‘I think he’s telling the truth’, Feeney looked ready to sprint.

‘And they didn’t put up a fight?’ said Sybil. The young policeman tried to avoid her gaze, but she had the kind of gaze that came around to find you wherever you stood.

‘No, your ladyship,’ was all he managed.

Lady Sybil looked at her husband and shrugged. ‘There would be one hell of a fight with someone who wanted to take me off to a place I didn’t want to go to,’ she said, ‘and I thought goblins had weapons? Pretty nasty fighters, so I’ve heard. I’d have thought there’d have been a war! We would have heard about it! From the way you talk about it, it sounds as if they were sleepwalking. Or perhaps they were starving? I haven’t noticed very many rabbits around here, compared with when I was a little girl. And why leave some behind? It’s all a bit of a puzzle, Sam. Nearly everyone around here is a family friend—’ She held up a hand quickly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to fail in your duty, Sam, you must understand that, but be careful and be sure of every step. And please, Sam – and I know you, Sam – don’t go at it like a bull at a gate. People round here might get the wrong idea.’

Sam Vimes was certain that he did have the wrong idea and his brow wrinkled as he said, ‘I don’t know, Sybil, how does a bull go at a gate? Does it just stop and look puzzled?’

‘No, dear, it smashes everything to pieces.’

Lady Sybil gave a warning smile and brushed herself down. ‘I don’t think we need detain you any longer, after all, Mister Upshot,’ she said to the grateful Feeney. ‘Do remember me to your dear mother. If she doesn’t mind, I’d like to meet her while I’m down here again to talk about old times. In the meantime I suggest you leave via the kitchen, no matter what my husband thinks about a policeman using the servants’ entrance, and tell Cook to supply you with, well, anything your mother would like.’

She turned to her husband. ‘Why don’t you escort him down there, Sam? And since you’re enjoying the fresh air, why not go and find Young Sam? I think he’s back in the barnyard, with Willikins.’

Feeney was silent as they went down the long corridors, but Vimes sensed the boy’s mind working its way through a problem, which came out when he said, ‘Lady Sybil is a very nice kind lady, isn’t she, sir?’

‘I do not need to be reminded of that,’ said Vimes, ‘and I’d like you to understand that she stands in vivid contrast to me. I get edgy when I think there’s a crime unsolved. A crime unsolved is against nature.’

‘I keep thinking of the goblin girl, sir. She looked like a statue, and the way she spoke, well, I don’t know what to say. I mean, they can be a bloody nuisance – they’ll have the laces out of your boots if you don’t move quick enough – but when you see them in their cave you realize there’s, well, kids, old granddad goblins and—’

‘Old mum goblins?’ Vimes suggested quietly.

Once again, Mrs Upshot’s little boy struggled in the unfamiliar and terrifying grip of philosophy and fetched up with, ‘Well, sir, I dare say cows make good mothers, but at the end of the day a calf is veal on the hoof, yes?’

‘Maybe, but what would you say if the calf walked up to you and said, “Hello, my name is Tears of the Mushroom”?’

Feeney’s face once again frowned in the effort of novel cogitation. ‘I think I’d have the salad, sir.’