Which meant that Cuddy saw the dwarf in the water.
If you could call it water.
If you could still call it a dwarf.
They looked down.
'You know,' said Detritus, after a while, 'that look like that dwarf who make weapons in Rime Street.'
'Bjorn Hammerhock?' said Cuddy.
'That the one, yeah.'
'It looks a bit like him,' Cuddy conceded, still talking in a cold flat voice, 'but not exactly like him.'
'What d'you mean?' said Angua.
'Because Mr Hammerhock,' said Cuddy, 'didn't have such a great big hole where his chest should be.'
Doesn't he ever sleep? thought Vimes. Doesn't the bloody man ever get his head down? Isn't there a room somewhere with a black dressing gown hanging on the door?
He knocked on the door of the Oblong Office.
'Ah, captain,' said the Patrician, looking up from his paperwork. 'You were commendably quick.'
'Was I?'
'You got my message?' said Lord Vetinari.
'No, sir. I've been . . . occupied.'
'Indeed. And what could occupy you?'
'Someone has killed Mr Hammerhock, sir. A big man in the dwarf community. He's been . . . shot with something, some kind of siege weapon or something, and dumped in the river. We've just fished him out. I was on the way to tell his wife. I think he lives in Treacle Street. And then I thought, since I was passing . . .'
'This is very unfortunate.'
'Certainly it was for Mr Hammerhock,' said Vimes.
The Patrician leaned back and stared at Vimes.
'Tell me,' he said, 'how was he killed?'
'I don't know. I've never seen anything like it . . . there was just a great big hole. But I'm going to find out what it was.'
'Hmm. Did I mention that Dr Cruces came to see me this morning?'
'No, sir.'
'He was very . . . concerned.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I think you upset him.'
'Sir?'
The Patrician seemed to be reaching a decision. His chair thumped forward.