Night Watch

it's fun watching you trying to pretend that this is just a civilized conversation when you know that any minute you're going to get it right in the kidneys. We feel your pain. And we like it…

He stopped walking. It was that or walk into someone. And all along the street doors and windows were opening as the clanging of the bell roused the neighbourhood.

“'evenin',” he said.

“'evenin', your grace,” said a voice out of history. “Nice to see an old friend, eh?”

Vimes groaned. The worst that could happen had happened. “Carcer?”

“That's Sergeant Carcer, thank you. Funny how things work out, eh? Turns out I'm prime copper material, haha. They gave me a new suit and a sword and twenty-five dollars a month, just like that. Lads, this is the man I told you about.”

“Why d'you call him your grace, sarge?” said one of the shadowy men.

Carcer's eyes never left Vimes's face. “It's a joke. Where we come from, everyone used to call him Duke,” he said. Vimes saw him slip a hand into a pocket. It came out holding something that had a brassy glint. “It was a sort of nickname, eh…Duke? Stop the kid ringing the damn bell, will you?”

“Knock it off, lance-constable,” Vimes muttered. The noise had worked, anyway. This little tableau had a silent audience now. Not that an audience would make any difference to Carcer. He'd cheerfully stab you to death in the centre of a crowded arena and then look around and say, “Who, me?” But the men behind him were edgy, like cockroaches wondering when the light was going to go on.

“Don't you worry, Duke,” Carcer said, sliding his fingers into the brass knuckles, “I've told the boys about you and me. How we, hah, go back a long way and all that, haha.”

“Yeah?” said Vimes. It wasn't prizewinning repartee, but Carcer obviously wanted to talk. “And how did you get made a sergeant, Carcer?”

“I heard where they were looking for coppers with fresh ideas,” said Carcer. “And that nice Captain Swing hisself talked to me and said he was in no doubt I was an honest man who had been unlucky. Measured me up, he did, with his calipers and his rules and jommetry and he said it proved I was not a criminal type. It was all the fault of my environment, he said.”

“What, you mean all those dead bodies everywhere you went?” said Vimes.

“Nice one, Duke, haha.”

“And you had fresh ideas, did you?”

“Well, he liked one of 'em,” said Carcer, narrowing his eyes. “Turned out he didn't know the ginger beer trick.”

The ginger beer trick. Well, that just about put the tin lid on it. Torturers down the ages hadn't found the ginger beer trick, and Carcer had handed it over to a patent maniac like Captain Swing.

“The ginger beer trick,” said Vimes. “Well done. Carcer. You're just what Swing's been looking for. The complete bastard.”

Carcer grinned as if he'd been awarded a small prize. “Yeah, I already told 'em how you got a down on me for stealing a loaf of bread.”

“Come on, Carcer,” said Vimes. “That's not you. You never pinched a loaf of bread in your life. Murdering the baker and stealing the bakery, that'd be your style.”

“He's a card, eh?” said Carcer, winking at his men and nodding towards Vimes. Then, in one movement, he spun around and punched the man beside him in the stomach.

“You don't call me sarge,” he hissed. “It's sergeant, understand?”

On the floor, the man groaned.

“I'll take that as a yes, then, haha,” said Carcer, slipping the brass knuckles back into his pocket. “Now the thing is…Duke…what you have there is one of my men, so how about you hand him over and we'll say no more about it?”

“What's happening, sarge?”

The voice was coming from some way behind Vimes. He turned. It was Wiglet and Scutts. They looked like men who'd been running but were now trying to affect a nonchalant swagger. It was getting less nonchalant and considerably less swaggery as they eyed up the Unmentionables.

The frantically ringing bell. That's what they'd always used. All the coppers who heard it would converge on it, because an Officer was in Trouble.

Of course, they wouldn't necessarily help him get out of trouble, not if the odds weren't right. This was the old Night Watch, after all. But at least they could fish him out of the river or cut him down and see he got a decent burial.

There was a rumble from further up the street and the rattling bulk of the hurry-up turned the corner, with Fred Colon at the reins and Constable Waddy hanging on behind. Vimes heard the shouts.

“What's up, Bill?”

“It's Keel and Vimesy,” Wiglet called back. “Hurry up!”

Vimes tried to avoid Carcer's eyes, tried to appear as if nothing had happened, tried to pretend that the world had not suddenly cracked open and let in the cold winds of infinity. But Carcer was smart.

He glanced at Vimes, looked at Sam.

“Vimesy?” he said. “Your name Sam Vimes, mister?”

“I ain't saying anything,” said Lance-Constable Vimes stoutly.

“Well well, well, well, well,” said Carcer happily. “Now here's a nice how-d'yer- do, eh? Something for a chap to think about, and no mistake, haha.”

There was a creak as the hurry-up wagon rolled to a stop. Carcer glanced up at the round, pale face of Corporal Colon.

“You just go about your business, corporal,” said Carcer. “You just leave now.”

Colon swallowed. Vimes could see his Adam's apple bob as it tried to hide.

“Er…we heard the ringing,” he said.

“Just a bit of high spirits,” said Carcer. “Nothing that need worry you. We're all coppers here, right? I wouldn't like there to be any trouble. There's just been a bit of a misunderstanding, that's all. Sergeant Keel here was just going to hand over my friend there, right, sergeant? No hard feelings, eh? You just happened to blunder into a little operation of ours. Best not to talk about it. Just you hand him over and we'll call it quits.”

Every head turned to Vimes.

The sensible thing would be to hand the man over. He knew it. And then—probably—Carcer would go away, and he didn't want that man any closer to young Sam than he could help.

But Carcer would come back. Oh, yes. Things like Carcer always came back, especially when they thought they'd found a weakness.

That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that Vimes had changed things.

There had been the Morphic Street Conspiracy. The Unmentionables had raided it. Several people had died but some had got away, and then there had been a few days of horrible confusion and then it ended when—

But young Sam Vimes hadn't been anywhere near Morphic Street that night. Keel had been teaching him to shake hands with doorknobs over on the other side of the Shades.

But you wanted to be clever, Duke. You wanted to put a spoke in the wheel and smack a few heads, didn't you?

And now Carcer's in it as well and you're out of the history books and travelling without a map…

Carcer was still grinning his cheerful grin. Here and now, more than anything else, Vimes wanted to see the end of that grin.

“Well, I'd like to oblige, sarge,” he said. “I really would. But I've pinched him now, so I've got to take him back to my nick and do the paperwork. He might well be able to help us with our inquiries into a number of unsolved crimes.”

“Such as?” said Carcer.

“Dunno,” said Vimes. “Depends on what we've got. We'll take him down the cells, give him a cup of tea,