The Truth (Discworld 25)

'How brave. Did you get the name of the man who climbed up after him?'

'Urn, no. Er, he was a Mystery Man,' said William.

'Oh, well, that's something. There's some people waiting to see you outside,' said Sacharissa. She glanced at her notes. 'There's a man who's lost his watch, a zombie who... well, I can't make out what he wants. There's a troll who wants a job, and there's someone who's got a complaint about the story of the fight at the Mended Drum and wants to behead you.'

'Oh, dear. All right, one at a time

The watch-loser was easy.

'It was one of the new clockwork ones my father gave to me,' said the man. 'I've been looking for it all week!'

'It's not exactly--'

'If you can put in the paper that I've lost it, maybe someone

who has found it will turn it in?' said the man, with unwarranted hopefulness. 'And I'll give you sixpence for your trouble.'

Sixpence was sixpence. William made a few notes.

The zombie was more difficult. For a start he was grey, shading to green in places, and smelled very strongly of artificial hyacinth aftershave, some of the more recent zombies having realized that their chance of making friends in their new life would be greatly improved if they smelled of flowers rather than just smelled.

'People like to know about people who are dead,' he said. His name was Mr Bendy, and he pronounced it in a way that made it clear that the 'Mr' was very much a part of the name.

'They do?'

'Yes,' said Mr Bendy emphatically. 'Dead people can be very interesting. I expect people would be very interested in reading about dead people.'

'Do you mean obituaries?'

'Well, yes, I suppose they would be. I could write them in an interesting way.'

'All right. Twenty pence each, then.'

Mr Bendy nodded. It was clear that he would have done it for nothing. He handed William a wad of yellow, crackling paper.

'Here's an interesting one to start you off,' he said.

'Oh? Whose is it?'

'Mine. It's very interesting. Especially the bit where I died.'

The next man to come in was in fact a troll. Unusually for trolls, who usually wore just enough to satisfy humanity's mysterious demands for decency, this one actually wore a suit. At least, it was largely tubes of cloth that covered his body, and 'suit' was about the only word.

' 'm Rocky,' he mumbled, looking down. Til take any job, guv.'

'What was your last job?' said William.

'Boxer, guv. But I wasn't happy wiv it. Kept getting knocked down.'

'Can you write or take pictures?' said William, wincing.

'No, guv. I can do heavy liftin'. 'n' I can'whistle tunes, guv.'

'That's... a good talent, but I don't think we--'

The door flew open and a thick-shouldered, leather-clad man burst in, flourishing an axe.

'You got no right putting that about me in the paper!' he said, waving the blade under William's nose.