Night Watch (Discworld 29)

'Can't say I recall him,' said Vimes, with care. 'You're not all that big, sarge.'

'Well, Ned was probably shorter in those days,' said Vimes, while his thoughts shouted: shut up, kid! But the kid was . . . well, him. Niggling at little details. Tugging at things that didn't seem to fit right. Being a copper, in fact. Probably he ought to feel proud of his younger self, but he didn't. You're not me, he thought. I don't think I was ever as young as you. If you're going to be me, it's going to take a lot of work. Thirty damn years of being hammered on the anvil of life, you poor bastard. You've got it all to come. Back at the Watch House, Vimes wandered idly over to the Evidence and Lost Property cupboard. It had a big lock on it which was not, however, ever locked. He soon found what he was looking for. An unpopular copper needed to think ahead, and he intended to be unpopular. Then he had a bite of supper and a mug of the thick brown cocoa on which the Night Watch ran and took Sam out on the hurry-up wagon. He'd wondered how the Watch was going to play it and wasn't surprised to find they were using the old dodge of obeying orders to the letter with gleeful malignancy. At the first point he made, Lance-Corporal Coates and Constable Waddy were waiting with four sullen or protesting insomniacs. 'Four, sah,' said Coates, ripping off a textbook salute. 'All we've apprehended sah. All written down on this chitty what I am giving to you at this moment in time sah!'

'Well done, lance-corporal,' said Vimes, drily, taking the paperwork, signing one copy and handing it back. 'You may have a half-holiday at Hogswatch, and give my regards to your granny. Help 'em in with 'em, Sam.'

'We usually only get four or five on a round, sir!' Sam whispered, as they pulled away. 'What'll we do?'

'Make several journeys,' said Vimes. 'But the lads were taking the pi- the michael, sir! They were laughing!'

'It's past curfew,' said Vimes. That's the law.' Corporal Colon and Constable Wiglet were waiting at their post with three miscreants. One of them was Miss Palm. Vimes gave Sam the reins and jumped down to open the back of the wagon and fold down the steps. 'Sorry to see you here, miss,' he said. 'Apparently some new sergeant's been throwing his weight around,' said Rosie Palm, in a voice of solid ice. She refused his hand haughtily, and climbed up into the wagon. Vimes realized that one of the other detainees was a woman, too. She was shorter than Rosie, and was giving him a look of pure bantam defiance. She was also holding a huge quilted workbasket. Out of reflex Vimes took it, to help her up the steps. 'Sorry about this, miss-' he began. 'Get your hands off that!' She snatched the basket back and scrambled into the darkness. 'Pardon me,' said Vimes. 'This is Miss Battye,' said Rosie, from the bench inside the wagon. 'She's a seamstress.'

'Well, I assumed she-'

'A seamstress, I said,' said Miss Palm. 'With needles and thread. Also specialises in crochet.'

'Er, is that a kind of extra-' Vimes began. 'It's a type of knitting,' said Miss Battye, from the darkness of the wagon. 'Fancy you not knowing that.'

'You mean she's a real-' said Vimes, but Rosie slammed the iron door. 'You just drive us on,' she said, 'and when I see you again, John Keel, we are going to have words!' There was some sniggering from the shadows inside the wagon, and then a yelp. It had been immediately preceded by the noise of a spiky heel being driven into an instep. Vimes signed the grubby form presented to him by Fred Colon and handed it back with a solid, fixed expression that made the man feel rather worried. 'Where to now, sarge?' said Sam, as they pulled away. 'Cable Street,' said Vimes. There was a murmur of dismay from the crated people behind them.

'That's not right,' muttered Sam. 'We're playing this by the rules,' said Vimes. 'You're going to have to learn why we have rules, lance-constable. And don't you eyeball me. I've been eyeballed by experts, and you look as if you're desperate for the privy.'

'Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people,' mumbled Sam. 'Do they?' said Vimes. Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it?'

' 'cos they torture people.' Ah, at least I was getting a grasp of basic social dynamics, thought Vimes. Sullen silence reigned in the seat beside him as the wagon rumbled through the streets, but he was aware of whispering behind him. Slightly louder than the background, he heard Rosie Palm's voice hiss: 'He won't. I'll bet anything.' A few seconds later a male voice, slightly the worse for drink and very much the worse for bladder-twisting dread, managed: 'Er, sergeant, we ... er ... believe the fine is five, er, dollars?'

'I don't think it is, sir,' said Vimes, keeping his eyes on the damp streets. There was some more frantic whispering, and then the voice said: 'Er . . . I have a very nice gold ring.'

'Glad to hear it, sir,' said Vimes. 'Everyone should have something nice,' He patted his pocket for his silver cigar case, and for a moment felt more anger than despair, and more sorrow than anger. There was a future. There had to be. He remembered it. But it only existed as that memory, and that was fragile as the reflection on a soap bubble and, maybe, just as easily popped. 'Er ... I could perhaps include-'

'If you try to offer me a bribe one more time, sir,' said Vimes, as the wagon turned into Cable Street, 'I shall personally give you a thumping. Be told.'

'Perhaps there is some other-' Rosie Palm began, as the lights of the Cable Street House came into view. 'We're not at home to a tuppenny upright, either,' said Vimes, and heard the gasp. 'Shut up, the lot of you.' He reined Marilyn to a halt, jumped down and pulled his clipboard from under the seat. 'Seven for you,' he said, to the guard lounging against the door. 'Well?' said the guard. 'Open it up and let's be having them, then.'

'Right,' said Vimes, flicking through the paperwork. 'No problem.' He thrust the clipboard forward. 'Just sign here.' The man recoiled as though Vimes had tried to offer him a snake. 'What d'ya mean, sign?' he said. 'Hand 'em over!'

'You sign,' said Vimes woodenly. 'That's the rules. Prisoners moved from one custody to another, you have to sign. More'n my job's worth, not to get a signature.'

'Your job's not worth spit,' snarled the man, grabbing the board. He looked at it blankly, and Vimes handed him a pencil. 'If you need any help with the difficult letters, let me know,' he said helpfully. Growling, the guard scrawled something on the paper and thrust it back. 'Now open up, p-lease,' he said. 'Certainly,' said Vimes, glancing at the paper. 'But now I'd like to see some form of ID, thank you.'

'What?'

'It's not me, you understand,' said Vimes, 'but if I went back and showed my captain this piece of paper and he said to me, Vi- Keel, how d'you know he's Henry the Hamster, well, I'd be a bit ... flummoxed. Maybe even perplexed.'

'Listen, we don't sign for prisoners!'

'We do, Henry,' said Vimes. 'No signature, no prisoners.'

'And you'll stop us taking 'em, will you?' said Henry the Hamster, taking a few steps forward. 'You lay a hand on that door,' said Vimes, 'and I'll-'

'Chop it off, will you?'

'-I'll arrest you,' said Vimes. 'Obstruction would be a good start, but we can probably think of some more charges back at the station.'

'Arrest me? But I'm a copper, same as you!'

'Wrong again,' said Vimes. 'What is the trouble . . . here?' said a voice. A small, thin figure appeared in the torchlight. Henry the Hamster took a step back, and adopted a certain deferential pose. 'Officer won't hand over the curfew breakers, sir,' he said. 'And this is the officer?' said the figure, lurching towards Vimes with a curiously erratic gait.

'Yessir.' Vimes found himself under cool and not openly hostile inspection from a pale man with the screwed-up eyes of a pet rat. 'Ah,' said the man, opening a little tin and taking out a green throat pastille. 'Would you be Keel, by any chance? I have been . . . hearing about you.' The man's voice was as uncertain as his walk. Pauses turned up in the wrong places. 'You hear about things quickly, sir.'