Snuff

gives a very smooth ride, although she can sometimes bounce around a little, very much like her namesake, but least said, soonest mended. And, of course, there is a berth next door for officer Feeney. You gentlemen might like to see the Susan get under way, perhaps?’

They did. The Susan had two oxen, just like the Wonderful Fanny, but with no heavy cargo and only about ten passengers she was the express of Old Treachery. Her paddle wheels, highly geared indeed, left a line of white water all down the valley behind her.

‘What happens now, commander?’ said Feeney, leaning on the rail as they watched Quirm disappearing in the wake behind them. ‘I mean, what are we going to do next?’

Vimes was smoking a cigar with great pleasure. Somehow this seemed the time and the place. Snuff was all very well, but a good cigar had time and wisdom and personality. He would be unhappy to see this one go.

‘I don’t need to do anything now,’ he said, turning to look at the sunset. And I don’t often see sunsets these days either, he thought. Mostly I see midnights; and I don’t need to chase Stratford, either. I know him like I know myself. He mentally paused, momentarily shocked at the implication.

Aloud he continued, ‘You saw those two Quirmian officers get on the boat, didn’t you? I arranged that. They will, of course, make certain that we have an undisturbed voyage. The crew have also been told that there may be some attempt by a murderer to board the boat. According to the lieutenant, Captain Harbinger can vouch for all of his crew as having sailed with him loyally for many years. Personally, of course, I’ll make certain the door to my berth is locked, and I’d suggest you do the same thing, Feeney.

‘Greed is at the centre of this, greed and hellish poisons. They’re both killers and greed is the worst, by a long way. You know, usually when I’m talking to young officers such as yourself I say that in a certain type of case, you should always follow the money, you should ask, “Who stands to lose? Who stands to gain?”’ Vimes regretfully tossed the butt of his cigar into the water. ‘But sometimes you should follow the arrogance … You should look for those who can’t believe that the law would ever catch them, who believe that they act out of a right that the rest of us do not have. The job of the officer of the law is to let them know that they are wrong!’

The sun was setting. ‘I do believe, Commander Vimes, that you have something in you that would turn the wheels of this boat all by itself if a man could but harness it!’ said Feeney admiringly. ‘And I remember reading somewhere that you would arrest the gods for doing it wrong.’

Vimes shook his head. ‘I’m sure I never said anything of the sort! But law is order and order is law and it must be the highest thing. The world runs on it, the heavens run on it and without order, lad, one second cannot follow another.’

He could feel himself swaying. Lack of sleep can poison the mind, drive it in strange directions. Vimes felt Feeney’s hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll help you along to your cabin, commander. It’s been a very long day.’

Vimes didn’t remember getting undressed and into bed, or rather into bunk, but he clearly had done so and, according to the little bits of white foam on the cabin’s tiny washbasin, he had cleaned his teeth as well. He had slept the sleep of the dead except for the bit where bits fall off and you crumble into dust, and all he could recall was cool blackness and, rising now to the surface, a certainty, as if a message had been left in the blackness to await the return of thought. He is after you, Blackboard Monitor Vimes. You know this because you recognize what was in his eyes. You know that type. They want to die from the day they are born, but something twists and so they kill instead. He will find you, and so will I. I hope the three of us meet in darkness.

As the message drained away Vimes stared at the opposite wall, in which the door now opened, after a cursory knock, to reveal the steward bearing that which is guaranteed to frighten away all nightmares, to wit, a cup of hot tea.³⁰

‘No need to get up, commander,’ came the cheerful greeting of the steward, as he carefully placed the cup of tea in a little indentation that some foresighted person had designed into the tiny cabin so that said teacup would not slide around. ‘The captain would like to inform you that we’ll be docking in about twenty minutes, although of course you’ll be welcome to stay aboard and finish your breakfast while we clean the scuppers and take on fresh oxen and, of course, pick up mail and fodder and a few more passengers. In the galley, I have today …’ and here the steward enthusiastically rattled off a menu of belly-stuffing proportions, concluding triumphantly with ‘a bacon sandwich!’

Vimes cleared his throat and said gloomily, ‘I don’t suppose you have any muesli, do you?’ After all, Sybil was only twenty minutes away.

The steward looked puzzled. ‘Well, yes, we would have the ingredients, of course, but I didn’t peg you as a rabbit food man?’

Vimes thought about Sybil again. ‘Well, perhaps today my little nose is twitching.’

Luxurious though the cabin was, roomy it was not. Vimes managed to shave with a razor donated by the steward, ‘with the compliments of the captain, commander’, and a thoughtfully placed basin, soap, flannel and minute towel, which at least helped him to deal with the form of ablution his old mother had called ‘washing the bits that showed’. He paid attention to them, nevertheless, taking some pains in the knowledge that this little wooden world would evaporate very soon and he would be back in the world of Sam Vimes, husband and father. Periodically, however, as he made himself respectable, he turned back to himself in the shaving mirror and said, ‘Fred Colon!’

The luxury cabin had turned out to be wonderful to sleep in, although so small that in reality it would only be suitable for a fastidious corpse. But eventually, when every part of Vimes he could reach had been decently, if erratically, scrubbed and the steward had brought him a hermit-sized portion of fruits and nuts and grains, he looked around to see what he might have left behind and saw a face in the shaving mirror. It was his own, although it must be said the phenomenon is not unusual in shaving mirrors. The Vimes in the mirror said, ‘You know he doesn’t just want to kill you. That wouldn’t be good enough for a bastard like that, not by a long way. He wants to destroy you and will try everything until he does.’

‘I know,’ said Vimes, and added, ‘You’re not a demon, are you?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said his mirror image. ‘I might be made up of your subconscious mind and a momentary case of muesli poisoning occasioned by a fermenting raisin. Watch where you walk, commander. Watch everywhere.’ And then it was gone.

Vimes stepped away from the mirror and turned around slowly. It must have been my face, he said to himself, otherwise it would have been the other way round, wouldn’t it?

He walked down the gangway into reality and what turned out to be Corporal Nobby Nobbs, beyond whom reality does not get much more real.