Snuff (Discworld 39)

The blacksmith’s gaze remained steady for longer than Vimes could be happy with, but at last the man smiled and said, “Yeah, for now.”

There was only one reply that Vimes could conceivably deliver. He smiled back and said, “A policeman’s answer if ever I heard one.”

As the couple strolled away there was a polite cough behind Vimes. He turned around and recognized the worried face of the colonel. “Do you have a minute, commander?”

Oh dear, thought Vimes.

“May I first say, commander, that I firmly agree with what you are doing and heavens know it needed doing.” The colonel coughed again and said, “You will not have any disagreement with me on that point.” Vimes waited and he continued, “My wife is a rather foolish woman who does appear to worship things like titles and, if I may say so, gives herself airs. Her father was a fisherman, an extremely good one, but do you know what? I think she would rather die than have anyone know.”

There was another pause, and in the red light Vimes could see the shine on the old man’s face. “What is going to happen to her, commander? At the moment, two polite young ladies in Ankh-Morpork City Watch uniform are standing guard over her in our house. I don’t know if this helps very much, but the first thing she did when the arresting officers arrived was make them tea. There is such a thing as good manners, you see. Is she going to prison?”

Vimes felt the urge to say, “Would you like her to?” but he choked it back, because of the tears. “It’s Charles, isn’t it?”

The colonel looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, commander, it’s Chas to my friends.”

“Am I one of them?” And Vimes went on, “Other people will decide what has to be done here. I’ve merely made certain that nobody can inadvertently leave before I’ve had a chance to talk to them all, do you understand? I’m not the judge and nor would I be allowed to sit on a jury. Coppers aren’t. And right now I’m not even certain what the penalty is for being stupid, vain and unthinking, although it does occur to me that if I was to put in prison every person guilty of these crimes we’d have to build about five hundred more.

“Speaking for myself,” Vimes continued, “I’d like to see that murderers, if such I might find, are seen and dealt with as murderers, and the frightened and unthinking obedient also treated as they deserve. And right now, sir, I’d just like to not be living in a world of bloody fools. Personally, I have no particular interest in seeing your wife in prison, although I have a suspicion that if she was put in the women’s wing of the Tanty her horizon would be usefully expanded and I expect she’d be so bossy that she’d be running the place after a couple of weeks.”

“I do love her, you know,” said the colonel. “We’ve been married for fifty-five years. I’m very sorry you’ve been troubled and, as I’ve said, I envy you your job.”

“I think, perhaps, I should envy her her husband,” said Vimes. “You know, colonel, I’ll be happy just for the truth to come out, preferably on page one of the Ankh-Morpork Times, if you understand me.”

“Absolutely, commander.”

Vimes looked down at the man, who now looked rather relieved, and added, “For what it’s worth, I suspect Lord Vetinari will make certain of his backing and possibly there will be some token punishments. Too many skeletons, you see, too many cupboards. Too many things around the world that maybe happened too long ago. What in the world can you do if some copper is going to go around digging them up? That’s called realpolitik, sir, and so I suspect that the world will go on and you will not be very long without the company of your wife, which should, if I’m any judge, mean that you can have more or less anything for dinner that you want for the next week.”

The idea seemed to uplift the colonel’s spirits. The old man smiled. “Do you know, commander, I’m sure that, if treated with respect, potted shrimps might turn out to be my bosom chums.”

The colonel held out his hand and Vimes took it, shook it and said, “Bon appétit.”

Afterward, there were several explanations about why the Quirm wagon containing a very important prisoner overturned in the middle of the night and rolled down a very steep hill, coming to bits as it did so. You could blame the dark, you could blame the fog, you could blame its speed and above all you could blame the express mail coach from Ankh-Morpork that ran straight into it on the corner.

By the time the wounded were in any state to comprehend what had happened they were minus one prisoner, who appeared to have picked the lock of his shackles, and plus one guard whose throat had been cut.

It was dark, it was cold, it was foggy and, hunched together, the survivors waited until dawn. After all, how could you find a man in darkness?

Stratford was good at speed. Speed was always useful, and he stayed on the road that was just visible in the murk. It didn’t really matter where he went; after all, he knew no one had ever given a description of him that helped. It was a gift to be indescribable.

After a while, however, he was surprised and delighted to hear a horse trotting along the road behind him. Some brave traveler, he thought, and smiled in the fog and waited. To his further surprise, the horse was reined to a halt a little way from him and the rider slid off. Stratford could barely make out a shape in the shimmering, water-laden air.

“My word! The famous Mr. Stratford,” said a voice cheerfully, as the stranger strolled toward him. “And let me tell you right now, if you make any kind of move you’ll be so dead that the graveyards would have to run backward.”

“I know you! Vimes sent you, after me?”

“Oh, dear me no, sir,” said Willikins. “The commander doesn’t know I’m h

ere at all, sir, and nor will he ever. That is a certainty. No, sir, I’m here, as it might be, out of a matter of professional pride. By the way, sir, if you’re thinking of killing me and taking my horse I’d be most grateful if you’d try that right now.”

Stratford hesitated. There was something about the voice that induced hesitation. It was calm, friendly, and…worrying.

Willikins strolled a little closer and there was a chuckle in his voice. “My word, sir, I’m a bit of a fighter myself, and when I heard about you chopping up that girl and that, I thought, goodness me, I thought. And so the other day, when I had my day off in lieu—very important your day off in lieu, if you’re a working man—I took a trip up to Overhang and learned a few things about you, and, my word, did I learn a few things. You really scare people, eh?”

Stratford still hesitated. This didn’t sound right. The man had a straightforward and cheerful voice, like a man you didn’t know very well having a companionable chat in the pub, and Stratford was used to people being very nervous when they spoke to him.

“Now, me,” said Willikins, “I was raised by the street as a fighter and I fight dirty, you can depend on that, and I’ll fight anybody, but I never punched a girl…oh, except Kinky Elsie, who was always game for that sort of thing and had me by the I’m-not-going-to-mentions at the time and my hands were tied, in more ways than one, as it were, and so I had to give her a sharp nudge with my foot. Happy days. But you? You’re just a killer. Worthless. A bully. I fight because I might get killed and the other bloke might win, or maybe we’d both end up in the gutter, too weak to throw another punch, when, quite likely, we’d prop each other up and go to the pub for a drink and a wash.”

He took another step closer. Stratford took a step back. “And you, Mr. Stratford, set out to kill Commander Vimes’s little lad, or worse. And do you know what is even worser? I reckon that if you’d done so, the commander would have arrested you and dragged you to the nearest police station. But inside he’d be cutting himself up with razorblades from top to bottom. And he’d be doing that because the poor bugger is scared that he could be as bad as you.” Willikins laughed. “Truth is, Mr. Stratford, from where I sits he’s a choirboy, he really is, but there has to be some justice in the world, you see, not necessarily law justice, but justice justice, and that’s why I am going to kill you. Although, because I’m a fair man I’m going to give you a chance to kill me first. That means one or other of us will die, so whatever happens the world is going to be a better place, eh? Call it…cleaning up. I know you have a weapon because you’d have run if you didn’t, and so I reckon you have a blade from one of those poor buggers from Quirm and I warrant that in all the confusion you probably stabbed him with it.”