Snuff (Discworld 39)

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 favors 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, Mr. 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 forward 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 favor 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, Mr. 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, Mr. 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 it.

“I took the safety pin out and stamped it into the dung,” said Vimes. “You can’t fire it without the pin! Now, I expect you have a couple of knives about your person, and so if you fancy cutting your way out past me, then I’d be happy to accommodate you, although I’ll tell you that firstly you won’t succeed, and secondly, if you manage to get past a boy who grew up on the streets of Ankh-Morpork there’s a man down there with a punch that can fell an elephant, and if you knife him you’ll just make him more annoyed—”

The surge this time was bigger than ever, and Vimes banged his head on the cabin’s roof before coming down again in front of Stratford and kicking him smartly in the official police officer method and also the groin.

“Oh, come on, Mr. Stratford, don’t you have a reputation to keep up? Feared killer? You should spend some time in the city, my lad, and I’ll make certain you do.” Stratford fell backward and Vimes continued, “And then you’ll hang, as is right and proper, but don’t worry—Mr. Trooper does a nifty noose and they say it hardly hurts at all. Tell you what, just to get the adrenaline pumping, Mr. Stratford, imagine I’m the goblin girl. She begged for her life, Mr. Stratford, remember that? I do! And so do you. You fell down at the first surge, Mr. Stratford. River rats know what to do. You didn’t, although I must say you’ve covered it very well. Whoops!”

This was because Stratford had indeed tried his hand with a knife. Vimes twisted his wrist and flung the blade down the stairs just as the glass in the wheelhouse smashed and a branch longer than V

imes plowed across the room, shedding leaves and dragging torrential rain and darkness behind it.

Both the lamps had gone out and, as it turned out, so had Stratford, hopefully through a shattered window, possibly to his death, but Vimes wasn’t sure. He would have preferred definitely. But there was no time to fret about him, because now came another surge, and water poured in through the glassless windows.

Vimes jerked open the little gate to the pilot’s deck and found Mr. Sillitoe struggling up out of the pile of storm-washed debris. He was moaning, “I’ve lost count, I’ve lost count!”

Vimes pulled him upward and helped him into his big chair, where he banged on the arms in frustration. “And now I can’t see a damned thing in all this murk! Can’t count, can’t see, can’t steer! Won’t survive!”

“I can see, Mr. Sillitoe,” said Vimes. “What do you want me to do?”

“You can?”

Vimes stared out at the homicidal river. “There’s a thundering great rock coming up on the left-hand side. Should it be doing that? Looks like there’s a busted landing stage there.”

“Ye gods! That’s Baker’s Knob! Here, let me at the wheel! How close is it now?”

“Maybe fifty yards?”

“And you can see it in all this? Damn me, mister, you must have been born in a cave! That means we ain’t that far from Quirm now, a touch under nineteen miles. You think you could stand lookout? Is my family okay? That little snot threatened to harm them if I didn’t keep the Fanny on schedule!” Something big and heavy bounced off the roof and spun away into the night, and the pilot went on, “Gastric Sillitoe, delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.” He stared ahead. “I’ve heard of you. Koom Valley, right? Happy to have you aboard.”

“Er, Gastric? Whole tree spinning in current near left-hand shore, ten yards ahead! Nothing much to see on right.”

The wheel spun frantically again. “Obliged to you, sir, and I surely hope you won’t take it amiss if I say that we generally talk about port and starboard?”

“Wouldn’t know about that, Gastric, never drank starboard. Mass of what looks like smashed logs ahead, forty yards, looks like small stuff, and I see a faint light high up on our right, can’t tell how far away.” Vimes ducked and a jagged log bounced off the back of the wheelhouse. Beside him the pilot sounded as if he had got a grip on things now.

“Okay, commander, that would be Jackson’s Light, very welcome sight! Now I’ve found my bearings and an hourglass that ain’t busted, I’d be further in your debt if you’d go below and tell Ten Gallons to cut loose the barges? There’s a chicken farmer on one of them! Best to get him on board before the dam breaks.”

“And hundreds of goblins, Gastric.”

“Pay them no mind, sir. Goblins is just goblins.”