Snuff

‘I fink he is dead,’ Ten Gallons leered. ‘I’ve never seen a man suffocated by his own nose before.’

It was hard to hear anything down in the cowshed given the complaining of the oxen and the ominous whirring of overstressed gears, but Vimes shouted, ‘Did he have a crossbow?’

Ten Gallons nodded and fingers thicker than Vimes’s wrist unhooked said weapon off a nail on the wall. ‘Would come with you, mister, but it’s all the three of us can do to hold things together down here!’ He spat. ‘Ain’t really any hope anyway, the damn slam is right behind us! See you on the other side, copper!’

Vimes nodded at him, examined the crossbow for a moment, made a little adjustment and, satisfied, climbed back up the steps.

Vimes looked at the few people left on the Wonderful Fanny who weren’t pouring water on the backs of steaming oxen or trying to hold the boat in one piece and above water. The shocks were indeed getting closer together, he was sure of it, and surely, once there was a big enough hole, the whole damn dam would give way.

All the occupants of the cabin except Brassbound, who fell over, jumped together as yet another surge raised the boat.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Feeney as Vimes went over to the trembling Brassbound, who had clearly realized that he was likely to be the unlucky winner of the first-over-the-side contest. And Feeney actually groaned when Vimes handed the man the recovered crossbow saying, ‘I told you, Chief Constable, I know a killer when I see one and I need back-up and I’m sure that our Mister Brassbound is very eager to get himself promptly on to the good side of the law right now, a decision that might well make him look better in court. Am I not right, Mister Brassbound?’

The young man nodded fervently.

Vimes added, ‘I’d rather have you down here, Feeney. Until I know exactly who is still on this tub, I’d like you to look after the ladies. Right now I’m not sure I know who’s alive and who’s dead.’

‘The Fanny is not a tub, commander,’ said Mrs Sillitoe sharply, ‘but I’ll forgive you this one time.’

Vimes gave her a little salute as all but Brassbound jumped and once again the idiot floundered.

Vimes turned towards the stairs. ‘It’s going to be Stratford up there with the pilot, isn’t it, Mister Brassbound?’

Another, bigger surge this time, and Brassbound landed heavily. He managed to get out, ‘And he’s heard about you, you know how it is, and he’s determined to get down to the sea before you catch up with him. He’s a killer, sir, a stone killer! Don’t give him a chance, sir, I beg you for all our sakes, and do it quickly for yours!’ The air was electric, truly electric. Everything metal shook and jangled. ‘They say the dam is going to break pretty soon,’ said Brassbound.

‘Thank you for that, Mister Brassbound. You sound like a sensible young man to me and I’ll say so to the authorities.’

The worried young man’s face was wreathed in smiles as he said, ‘And you’re the famous Commander Vimes, sir! I’m glad to be at your back.’

There were a lot of steps up to the wheelhouse. The pilot was king and rode high over the river, monarch of all he surveyed even if, as now, rain hammered at the expensive glass windows as if it found such solid slabs of sky offensive. Vimes stepped inside quickly. It was hardly worth shouting, given that the storm drowned out everything, but you had to be able to say that you’d said it: ‘Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch! Statute of necessary action!’ Which didn’t exist, but he swore to himself that he would damn well get it enacted as soon as he got back, even if he had to call in favours from all over the world. A lawman faced with a dreadful emergency should at least have some kind of figleaf to shove down the throats of the lawyers!

He could see the back of Mr Sillitoe’s head with his pilot’s cap. The pilot paid Vimes no attention, but a young man was standing looking at Vimes in knock-kneed, pants-wetting horror. The sword he had been carrying landed heavily on the deck.

Brassbound was hopping from one foot to the other. ‘You’d better take care of him right now, commander, he’ll have a trick or two up his sleeve and no mistake!’

Vimes ignored this and carefully patted the young man down, freeing up one short knife, the sort a river rat might carry. He used it to cut a length of rope and tied the man’s hands together behind him. ‘Okay, Mister Stratford, we’re going downstairs. Though if you’d like to dive into the water first I won’t stop you.’

And then the man spoke for the first time. ‘I ain’t Stratford, sir,’ he said, pleading. ‘I’m Squeezy McIntyre. That’s Stratford behind you with the crossbow pointing at you, sir.’

The man formerly known as Brassbound gave a chuckle as Vimes turned. ‘Oh my, oh my, the great Commander Vimes! I’ll be damned if you ain’t as dumb as a pile of horseshit! You know the eyes of a killer when you see them, do you? Well, I reckon I’ve killed maybe sixteen people, not including goblins, of course, they don’t count.’

Stratford sighted on Vimes and grinned. ‘Maybe it’s my boyish features, would you say? What kind of bloody fool cares about the goblins, eh? Oh, they say they can talk, but you know how those little buggers can lie!’ The tip of the crossbow drifted back and forwards hypnotically in Stratford’s hands. ‘I’m curious, though. I mean, I don’t like you, and sure as salvation I’m going to shoot you, but do me a favour and tell me what you saw in my eyes, okay?’

Squeezy took the opportunity to hop desperately down the steps just as Vimes said, with a shrug, ‘I saw a goblin girl being murdered. What lies did she tell you? I know the eyes of a murderer, Mister Stratford, oh I surely do, because I’ve looked into eyes like that many times. And if I need reminding, I look into my shaving mirror. Oh, yes, I recognize your eyes and I’m interested to see what you’re going to do next, Mister Stratford. Though now I come to think about it, maybe it wasn’t sensible of me to give you that crossbow. Maybe I really am stupid, because I’m offering you the opportunity to surrender to me here and now and I’m doing it only once.’

Stratford stared with his mouth open and then said, ‘Hell, commander, I’ve got the drop on you, and you want me to surrender to you? Sorry, commander, but I’ll see you again in hell!’

There was a space in the world for the crossbow to sing when the grinning Stratford pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the sound that it made approximated to the word thunk. He stared at