The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

I wouldn"t, thought Vimes. I don"t use words like that.

"Constable Shoe," said Constable Shoe, when the door of the bootmaker"s factory was opened. "Homicide."

"You come "bout Mister Sonky?" said the troll who"d opened the door. Warm damp air blew out into the street, smelling of incontinent cats and sulphur.

"I meant I"m a zombie," said Reg Shoe. "I find that telling people right away saves embarrassing misunderstandings later on. But coincidentally, yes, we"ve come about the alleged deceased."

"We?" said the troll, making no comment about Reg"s grey skin and stitch marks.

"Doon here, bigjobs!"

The troll looked down, not a usual direction in Ankh-Morpork, where people preferred not to see what they were standing in.

"Oh," he said, and took a few steps backwards.

Some people said that gnomes were no more belligerent than any other race, and this was true. However, the belligerence was compressed down into a body six inches high and, like many things when they are compressed, had an inclination to explode. Constable Swires had been on the force only for a few months, but news had gone around and already he inspired respect, or at least the bladder-trembling terror that can pass for respect on these occasions.

"Don"t just stand there gawpin", where"s yon stiff?" said Swires, striding into the factory.

"We put him in der cellar," said the troll. "And now we got half a ton of liquid rubber runnin" to waste. He"d be livid "bout that... if he was alive, o"course."

"Why"s it wasted?" said Reg.

"Gone all thick and manky, hasn"t it? I"m gonna have to dump it later on, and days not easy. We was supposed to be dippin" a load of Ribbed Magical Delights today, too, but all der ladies felt faint when I hauls him outa der vat and dey went off home."

Reg Shoe looked shocked. He was not, for various reasons, a patron of Mr Sonky"s wares, romance not being a regular feature of the life of the dead, but surely the world of the living had some standards, didn"t it?

"You employ ladies here?" he said.

The troll looked surprised. "Yeah. Sure. It"s good steady work. Dey"re good workers, too. Always laughing and tellin" jokes while dey"re doin" der dippin" and packin", "specially when we"re doin" der Big Boys." The troll sniffed. "Pers"nally, I don"t unnerstan" der jokes."

"Them Big Boys are bloody good value for a penny," said Buggy Swires.

Reg Shoe stared at his tiny partner. There was just no way that he was going to ask the question. But Swires must have seen his expression.

"After a bit of work wi" yon scissors, ye won"t find a better mackintosh in the whole city," said the gnome, and laughed nastily.

Constable Shoe sighed. He knew that Mr Vimes had an unofficial policy of getting ethnic minorities into the Watch, but he wasn"t sure this was wise in the case of gnomes, even though there was, admittedly, no ethnic group that was more minor. They had an inbuilt resistance to rules. This didn"t just apply to the law, but to all the invisible rules that most people obeyed unthinkingly, like "Do not attempt to eat this giraffe" or "Do not headbutt people in the ankle just because they won"t give you a chip". It was best to think of Constable Swires simply as a small independent weapon.

"You"d better show us the d -  the person who is currently vitally challenged," he said. They were led downstairs. What was hanging from a beam there would have frightened the life out of anyone who wasn"t already a zombie.

"Sorry "bout dat," said the troll, pulling it down and tossing it into a corner, where it coiled into a rubbery heap.

"What d"heel wazzit?" said Constable Swires.

"We had to pull der rubber off"f him," said the troll. "Sets quick, see? Once you get it out in der air."

"Hey, that"s a" biggest Sonky I ever saw," chuckled Buggy. "A whole-body Sonky! Reckon that"s the way he wanted to go?"

Reg looked at the corpse. He didn"t mind being sent out on murders, even messy ones. The way he saw it, dying was really just a career change. Been there, done that, worn the shroud... And then you got over it and got on with your life. Of course, he knew that many people didn"t, for some reason, but he thought of them as not prepared to make the effort.

There was a ragged wound in the neck.

"Any next of kin?" he said.

"He got a brother in Uberwald. We"ve sent word," the troll added. "On der clacks. It cost twenty dollars! Dat"s murder!"

"Can you think of any reason why someone would kill him?"