Snuff (Discworld 39)

In the Ankh-Morpork City Watch forensic laboratory Igor was brewing coffee, to the accompaniment of distant rumblings, strange flashes of light and the smell of electricity. At last he pulled the big red lever and frothing brown liquid gurgled into a pot, to be subsequently delivered into two mugs, one of which carried the slogan “Igorth htitch you up,” while the other was emblazoned with “Dwarfs do it slightly lower down.” He handed that one to Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom, whose previous experience as an alchemist meant that she sometimes did duty in the lab. But at this point the cosiness of morning coffee was interrupted by Nobby Nobbs, towing Sergeant Colon behind him. “The sergeant has had a bit of a shock, Igor, so I thought you might be able to help him.”

“Well, I could give him another one,” Igor volunteered, as Fred Colon slumped into a chair, which creaked ominously under his weight. The chair had straps on it.

“Look,” said Nobby, “I’m not mucking about! You’ve heard of the tobacco that counts? Well, he just had a cigar that cries. I’ve put it in this ’ere evidence bag, as per standing instructions.”

Cheery took the bag and peered inside. “It’s got egg sandwiches in it! Honestly, Nobby, has anyone explained to you what forensic means?” On the basis that she probably couldn’t make things actually worse, Cheery emptied the sandwiches on to the table, where they were joined by one cigar with mayonnaise. She wiped this down with some care and looked at it. ?

??Well, Nobby? I don’t smoke and I don’t know much about cigars, but this one appears to be quite happy at the moment.”

“You have to hold it to your ear,” said Nobby helpfully.

Cheery did so, and said, “All I can hear is the crinkling of the tobacco, which I suspect hasn’t been properly kept.” The dwarf held the cigar away from her face and looked at it suspiciously, and then wordlessly she handed it to Igor, who put it to his ear, or at least the one that he was currently using, because you never know with Igors. They looked at one another and Igor broke the silence. “There are such things, I believe, as tobacco weevils?”

“I’m sure there are,” said Cheery, “but I doubt very much if they…chuckle?”

“Chuckle? It sounded to me like somebody crying,” said Igor, as he squinted at the bulging cigar, and added, “We should wash down the table and clean a scalpel and use the number-two tweezers and two, no, make that four sterilized surgical masks and gloves. It may be some kind of unusual insect in there.”

“I held that cigar up to my ear,” said Nobby. “What kind of insect are we talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” said Igor, “but generally the places in the world where tobacco is cultivated are known for some remarkably dangerous ones. For example, the yellow grass weevil of Howondaland has been known to enter the skull via the ears, lay its eggs in the victim’s brain and leave the poor victim hallucinating continuously until it has exited via the nostrils. Death inevitably ensues. My cousin Igor has a tank full of them. They’re very good at getting skulls scrupulously clean.” Igor paused. “So I’m told, that is, although I personally cannot confirm that.” He paused again, then added, “Of course.”

Nobby Nobbs headed for the door, but, unusually, Sergeant Colon did not follow his friend. Instead, he said, “I’ll just stay with my fingers in my ears, if it’s all the same to you?”

He craned his head to watch as Igor carefully pulled the cigar apart, and said conversationally, “They say that the cigars made in foreign parts are rolled on the thighs of young women. Personally I call that disgusting.”

There was a tinkle and a glint* and something dropped onto the table. Cheery leaned cautiously forward. It looked like a small expensive vial for the most delicate alchemical experiments and yet, she thought later, it seemed to have movement in it, movement while staying still. Igor looked over her shoulder and said, “Oh.”

They looked at the vial in silence, silence that was soon broken by Sergeant Colon. “That looks shiny,” he said. “Is it worth anything?”

Cheery Littlebottom raised her eyebrows at Igor, who shrugged. He said, “Priceless, I should think, if you could find a buyer with enough money and the, how shall I put it, right taste in ornamentation.”

“It’s an unggue pot,” Cheery said carefully. “A goblin ceremonial pot, sarge.”

The dawn of understanding began to flow across Sergeant Colon’s gas giant of a face. “Ain’t they the things they make to store all their piss and shit in?” he said, backing away.

Igor cleared his throat and looked at Cheery as he said, icily, “Not this type, if I’m right, and at least not down here on the Plains. Those that feel themselves protected in the high mountains make pots, and also use the unggue brushes and, of course, the unggue masks.” He looked expectantly, but without any real hope, at the sergeant. Cheery, who had known him for longer, said, “I understand, sarge, that the goblins on the Plains think the ones in the mountains are rather strange. As for this pot,” she hesitated, “I rather fear that this is a particularly special one.”

“Well, it looks like the little buggers got that right,” said Fred cheerfully, and, to Cheery’s horror, he snatched up the tiny pot. “It’s mine, that’s why, far too good for a stinking goblin, but how come it makes a noise?”

Sergeant Littlebottom looked at Igor’s expression, and, to prevent trouble in the Forensic Department, she grabbed the sergeant’s arm and dragged him out of the door, slamming it behind them.

“Sorry about this, sergeant, but I could see that Igor was becoming a little bit agitated.”

Sergeant Colon brushed himself down with as much dignity as he could muster, and said, “If it’s valuable, then I want it, thank you so very much. After all, it was given to me in good faith. Right?”

“Well, of course that is so, sergeant, but you see, it already belongs to a goblin.”

Sergeant Colon burst out laughing. “Them? What have they got to own apart from big piles of crap?”

Cheery hesitated. Lazy and bombastic as Fred Colon was, the record showed that, against all apparent evidence, he had been a helpful and useful officer. She needed to be tactful.

“Sergeant, can I say right now that I appreciate all the help you have given to me since I arrived in Pseudopolis Yard? I’ll always remember you pointing out to me all those places where a watchman could stand out of the wind and the worst of the rain, and I definitely committed to memory the list of public houses who would be generous to a thirsty copper after hours. And indeed I remember you telling me that a copper should never take a bribe, and why a meal was not a bribe. I cherish your approval, sergeant, since I know that by upbringing you are not particularly happy about women in the Watch, and especially when one of those women is of the dwarf persuasion. I realize that in the course of your long career you have had to adapt your thinking to meet the new circumstances. Therefore, I’m proud to be a colleague of yours, Sergeant Colon, and I hope you’ll forgive me when I tell you that there are times when you should shut up and get some new ideas in that big fat head of yours rather than constantly reheating the old ones. You picked up a little trinket, sergeant, and now it really is yours, more yours than I think you can possibly imagine. I wish I could tell you more, but I only know what the average dwarf knows about goblins; and I don’t know too much about this type of unggue pot but I think, given the floral decoration and its small size, that it is the one they call the soul of tears, sergeant, and I think you have made your life suddenly very interesting because— Can I ask you to put it down for just one moment, please? I promise most sincerely that I won’t take it away from you.”

Colon’s somewhat piggy eyes looked at Cheery suspiciously, but he said, “Well, if it gives you any satisfaction.” He went to put the pot on the nearby windowsill and she saw him shake his hand. “Seems to be stuck on.”

Cheery thought to herself, so it’s true. Out loud she said, “I’m very sorry to hear that, sergeant, but you see, in that pot is the living soul of a goblin child and it belongs to you. Congratulations!” she said, trying to keep the rising sarcasm out of her voice.

That night Sergeant Colon dreamed he was in a cave with monsters chattering away at him in their dreadful lingo. He put it down to the beer, but it was funny the way he couldn’t let the little glittering thing go. His fingers never quite managed it, however hard he tried.