Snuff

‘Oh, no, sir. Should I?’

The seat bounced them up and down again as Vimes said, ‘Strictly speaking, lad, the answer is no, especially if you never work with me. Now please write it all down, just as I asked. And since I am not as young as you, I’m going to try to get some rest.’

‘Yessir, I understand that, sir. Just one thing, sir? Mister Stoner, the Clerk to the Magistrates, came to see me this afternoon, and had a chat and said not to bother about the goblin girl because goblins are officially vermin. He was very kind, and brought some brandy for my old mum, and he said that you were a fine gentleman but tended to get a bee in your bonnet, sir, what with being upper-class and out of touch, sir. Sir? Sir? Have you gone to sleep, sir?’

Vimes turned his head and in honeyed tones said, ‘Did you make a note of that in your notebook, lad?’

‘Oh, yessir!’

‘And you still got in this coach with me? Why did you do that, Mister Feeney?’

Stones rattled behind them and it seemed some time before Feeney Upshot had assembled his thoughts to his satisfaction. He said, ‘Well, Commander Vimes, I thought, well, that Mister Stoner he’s a nob more or less, and so is Commander Vimes, only he’s a duke and is therefore a very big nob and if you’re going to get caught between nobs, maybe you’d better pick the biggest one to be on the side of.’ He heard Vimes grunt, and continued, ‘And then, sir, I thought, well, I was up there, I saw that poor creature and what had been done to her, and I remembered that Stoner had tried to make a fool out of me by making me arrest your good self, sir, and I thought about the goblins and I thought, well, they’re mucky and smelly and the old goblin was crying, and animals don’t cry and goblins, well, they make stuff, beautiful stuff and as for pinching our pigswill and being generally mucky, we surely ain’t short of humans around here who are pretty big in that respect, I could tell you some stories, and so I thought some more and I thought, well, that Mister Stoner, I thought he must have got it wrong.’

There was a rumbling as the coach went over a bridge and then the sound of wheels on packed flints was back. Feeney said anxiously, ‘Is that all right, sir?’ He waited nervously. And then the voice of Vimes, and this time sounding rather far away, said, ‘Do you know what that little speech you made was called, Mister Feeney?’

‘Don’t know, sir, it’s just what I think.’

‘It was called redemption, Mister Feeney. Hold on to it.’

Vimes woke from a doze in which he had dreamed about Young Sam playing a harp, and by the time he had understood that this was a dream the noise of the coach wheels had changed as they slowed down and stopped.

Willikins slid open the small slot that allowed discourse between passenger and coachman and said quietly, ‘Rise and shine, sir, we’re about a quarter of a mile from Hangnails, population thirty-seven and still stupid. And you can smell turkey from here and wish you bloody well couldn’t, excuse my Klatchian. I surmised that it might be a good idea to walk quietly the rest of the way, sir.’

Vimes got down from the coach and stamped the cramp out of his limbs. The air stank with the curiously invasive smell of birds; not even goblins persecuted the sinuses one half so badly. But this was a tiny distraction compared with the thrill, yes, the thrill. How long was it since he had led a dawn raid? Far too long, that’s how long, and now captains and senior sergeants got the job while he stayed in the office, being the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Well, not today.

Whispering as they walked through the knee-high mist, he said, ‘You, Chief Constable Upshot, you will hammer on the front door when I give you the signal, and I will be stationed outside the back door in case the gentleman does a runner, okay?’

They were nearing the property now, yes, they would just need the two of them. The farmhouse looked barely big enough to have two doors, let alone three.

‘What shall I say, commander?’ hissed Feeney.

‘Oh, blimey, you’re the bloody son and grandson of coppers, my lad, what the hell do you think you should shout? Let me give you a clue. It does not include the word “please”. I’ll give you a whistle when I’m in position, got it? Good.’

They walked with care across the stinking yard and Vimes took up station around the back, where an interesting thought occurred to him and he made a mental note. He then leaned against the dirty wall of the house a little bit away from the back door, took a pinch of snuff to clear the air of turkey and gave one faint whistle.

‘Open up in the name of the law! You are surrounded! You have one minute to open the door! I mean it! Open the door! This is the police!’

Leaning cosily against the wall, Vimes grudgingly rated that as pretty good for a beginner, with one point taken off for adding ‘I mean it’, then, as a man flew out of the back door, he stuck out his boot.

‘Good morning, sir. My name is Commander Vimes! I hope you’re in a position to remember yours!’

In the sheds the turkeys were going insane, causing a slight rise in the smell. The man struggled to his feet, looking around desperately.

‘Oh, yes, you could run, yes, you could do that,’ said Vimes in a conversational tone of voice, ‘but it might be thought by others that this might indicate that you knew you had some reason to run. Now, personally, I would agree that anyone stopped by a copper should run like buggery, innocent or not, on first principles. Besides, we get so fat these days that we need the exercise. But do run if you want to, Mister Flutter, because I can run too, and very fast.’

By now Flutter was smiling the smile of a man who thinks that this copper is not very smart.

‘I bet you don’t have a magistrate’s warrant, do ya?’

‘Well now, Mister Flutter, why might you think that, eh? Perhaps you think the magistrates might not issue a warrant to arrest you, yes? By the way, thank you for showing me where the tobacco barrels are stored. Your cooperation will be taken into consideration.’

Some days are bad days, like when you stare right down into the mangled corpse of a young woman, and then you get good days, when the suspect’s darting eyes flashing across the yard show you exactly where the loot is hidden.