Night Watch (Discworld 29)

There had been the Morphic Street Conspiracy. The Unmentionables had raided it. Several people had died but some had got away, and then there had been a few days of horrible confusion and then it ended when- But young Sam Vimes hadn't been anywhere near Morphic Street that night. Keel had been teaching him to shake hands with doorknobs over on the other side of the Shades. But you wanted to be clever, Duke. You wanted to put a spoke in the wheel and smack a few heads, didn't you? And now Carcer's in it as well and you're out of the history books and travelling without a map . . . Carcer was still grinning his cheerful grin. Here and now, more than anything else, Vimes wanted to see the end of that grin. 'Well, I'd like to oblige, surge,' he said. 'I really would. But I've pinched him now, so I've got to take him back to my nick and do the paperwork. He might well be able to help us with our inquiries into a number of unsolved crimes.'

'Such as?' said Carcer. 'Dunno,' said Vimes. 'Depends on what we've got. We'll take him down the cells, give him a cup of tea, chat to him about this and that. . . you know how it is. A man can get quite chatty after a cup of tea. Or carbonated beverage of his choice, of course.' There was a snigger from among the members of the Night Watch, although Vimes hoped none of them knew what the last sentence meant. Carcer's smile dissolved. 'I said he's one of my men, on official business, and I am a sergeant,' he said. 'And I am Sergeant-at-Arms and ,' said we'll hand him over to you at the nick, Sergeant Carcer. Officially.' Carcer nodded towards the lance-constable, so imperceptibly that only Vimes saw it. And he lowered his voice. 'But suddenly I've got all the aces, Duke,' he said. 'But suddenly I'm not playing cards, Carcer. Now, we could have a barney right here and now and, y'know, I'm not sure which way it'd go. But I'm sure as hell that you wouldn't be a sergeant tomorrow. And if you think you've got all the aces, you can afford to raise the stakes.' Carcer stared at him for a moment. Then he winked, and half turned away. 'I told you he's a caution, eh?' he said to the multitude. He gave Vimes a conspiratorial dig in the ribs. 'Always trying it on! Okay, sergeant. . . at-arms, we'll do it your way. Got to give you brownjobs something to do, haha, eh? I'll send a couple of the lads down for him in an hour or so.'

That's right, give me time to sweat on whether I'll pop into non- existence if you cut the lad's throat, Vimes thought. Trouble is, I am sweating. He straightened up, and beckoned to the hurry-up wagon. 'Me and my lads will all take him back,' he said. Time for our cocoa break, see? Give me a hand up with him, Waddy. Got any other passengers, Fred?'

'Just a drunk, sarge. Been spewing everywhere.'

'Okay. We'll put the prisoner in the back and we'll all hang on to the outside.' Vimes nodded at Carcer. 'I'm sure we'll meet again soon, sergeant.'

'Yeah,' said Carcer, and there was that impish grin again. 'And you be sure to look after yourself, d'you hear?' Vimes leapt on to the side of the wagon as it rattled past, and didn't even look back. That was one thing about Carcer, at least - he wouldn't shoot you in the back if he thought there was a reasonable chance, pretty soon, of cutting your throat. After a while, Constable Wiglet, hanging on beside him as the wagon rocked, said: 'What happened back there, sarge? You know that bloke?'

'Yes. He's killed two coppers. One that tried to arrest him and one who was off duty and eating a pie. Killed other people, too.'

'But he's a copper!'

'Swing gave him a job, Wiglet.' Suddenly, the rattle of the wheels sounded much louder. All the other watchmen were listening very intently. 'You been in the Watch long, constable?' said Vimes. 'Two years, sarge,' said Wiglet. 'Used to be a fruit porter down the market but I got a bad back and a bad chest what with all the cold mornings.'

'I never heard about coppers being killed,' said Lance-Constable Vimes. 'It wasn't here, kid. It was a long way away.'

'You were there?'

'They were coppers I knew, yes.' Again, the mood on the cart changed. There was no obvious sound from the watchmen but over the wagon hung the word: 'Ah-hah . . .'

'So you came here to track him down . . . ?' said Wiglet. 'Something like that.'

'We heard you came from Pseudopolis, sarge,' said Sam. ~ 'I've come from a lot of places.'

'Wow!' said Sam. 'He killed a copper who was eating a pie?' said Fred Colon, from the box. 'Yep.'

'What a bastard! What kind of pie was it?'

'Witnesses didn't say,' Vimes lied. This was old Ankh-Morpork. The dwarfs here right now were a tiny minority who kept their heads down . . . well, further down than usual. There certainly were no all-night rat pie shops. Wiglet had something on his mind. 'They're going to come for that bloke you picked up,' he said. 'Want the rest of the night off, constable?' said Vimes. There was some nervous laughter from the rest of the crew. Poor devils, thought Vimes. You joined up 'cos the wages were good and there was no heavy lifting, and suddenly it's going to be difficult. 'What're you going to charge our man with, sarge?' said Sam. 'Attempted assault on a copper. You saw the knives.'

'You did kick him, though.'

'Right, I forgot. We'll do him for resisting arrest, too.' There was some more laughter. We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything. What a bunch. I know you well, gentlemen. You're in it for the quiet life and the pension, you don't hurry too much in case the danger is still around when you get there, and the most you ever expected to face was an obstreperous drunk or a particularly difficult cow. Most of you aren't even coppers, not in your head. In the sea of adventure, you're bottom- feeders. And now, it's war . . . and you're in the middle. Not on either side. You're the stupid little band of brownjobs. You're beneath contempt. But believe me, boys - you'll rise. For a minute or two after Morphic Street went quiet nothing moved and nothing happened. Then a coach came around the corner. It was a particularly fine one, drawn by two horses. Its lamps were torches, and as the coach bounced on the cobbles the zig-zagging flames seemed to trail for a moment in the air, and appeared to have a smoky quality. In so far as they revealed anything, these suggested that the coach had been done up in purple livery. It also seemed to be rather heavy on its wheels.

It pulled to a halt at the next doorway down from the one where Vimes had performed his arrest. Vimes, who thought he knew a lot about being a shadow, would have been surprised to see two dark figures step out of the doorway's darkness into the light of the torch. The coach door swung open. 'Strange news, kind lady,' said one of the shadows. 'Very strange news, dearie,' said the other shadow. They climbed up into the coach, which sped off. Vimes was impressed at the way the men reacted back at the Watch House, despite the lack of any command from him. Wiglet and Scutts jumped down as soon as the wagon was in the yard and dragged the gates across. Inside, Colon and Waddy pulled the shutters across the windows. Waddy went into the armoury and came out with an armful of crossbows. It was all done with speed and, for the men concerned, precision. Vimes nudged his younger self. 'Make the cocoa, will you, kid?' he said. 'I don't want to miss the show.' He sat down at his desk and put his feet up as Colon locked the door and Waddy pulled the bar across. This is happening, he thought, but it didn't happen before. Not exactly like this. This time, the Morphic Street mob did a runner. They weren't ambushed in their meeting. There wasn't a fight. The sight of all those coppers must've scared them rigid. They weren't much anyway, just sloganeers and skivers and me-too-ists, the people who crowd behind the poor slob who's the spokesman shouting 'yeah, right' and leg it up an alley when the law gets rough. But some had died in the ambush, and some fought back, and one thing led, as always, to another. Except, this time, there was no ambush, because some thick sergeant made too much noise . . . Two different presents. One past, one future . . . 'I don't know what's going to happen next. However, I've got a damn good idea. 'Well done, lads,' he said, standing up. 'You finish trapping us inside and I'll go and tell the old man what's happening.' He heard the puzzled muttering behind him as he climbed the stairs. Captain Tilden was sitting at his desk, staring at the wall. Vimes coughed loudly, and saluted. 'Had a bit of-' he began, and Tilden turned his ashen face to him. He looked as though he had seen a ghost, and it had been in the mirror. 'You've heard the news too?'

I heard where they were looking for coppers with fresh ideas,' said Carcer. 'And that nice Captain Swing hisself talked to me and said he was in no doubt I was an honest man who had been unlucky. Measured me up, he did, with his calipers and his rules and jommetry and he said it proved I was not a criminal type. It was all the fault of my environment, he said.'

'What, you mean all those dead bodies everywhere you went?' said Vimes. 'Nice one, Duke, haha.'

'And you had fresh ideas, did you?'

'Well, he liked one of 'em,' said Carcer, narrowing his eyes. "Turned out he didn't know the ginger beer trick.' The ginger beer trick. Well, that just about put the tin lid on it. Torturers down the ages hadn't found the ginger beer trick, and Carcer had handed it over to a patent maniac like Captain Swing. 'The ginger beer trick,' said Vimes. 'Well done. Carcer. You're just what Swing's been looking for. The complete bastard.' Carcer grinned as if he'd been awarded a small prize. 'Yeah, I already told 'em how you got a down on me for stealing a loaf of bread.'

'Come on, Carcer,' said Vimes. That's not you. You never pinched a loaf of bread in your life. Murdering the baker and stealing the bakery, that'd be your style.'

'He's a card, eh?' said Carcer, winking at his men and nodding towards Vimes. Then, in one movement, he spun around and punched the man beside him in the stomach. 'You don't call me sarge,' he hissed. It's sergeant, understand?' On the floor, the man groaned. I'll take that as a yes, then, haha,' said Carcer, slipping the brass knuckles back into his pocket. 'Now the thing is ... Duke . . . what you have there is one of my men, so how about you hand him over and we'll say no more about it?'

'What's happening, sarge?' The voice was coming from some way behind Vimes. He turned. It was Wiglet and Scutts. They looked like men who'd been running but were now trying to affect a nonchalant swagger. It was getting less nonchalant and considerably less swaggery as they eyed up the Unmentionables. The frantically ringing bell. That's what they'd always used. All the coppers who heard it would converge on it, because an Officer was in Trouble.

Of course, they wouldn't necessarily help him get out of trouble, not if the odds weren 't right. This was the old Night Watch, after all. But at least they could fish him out of the river or cut him down and see he got a decent burial. There was a rumble from further up the street and the rattling bulk of the hurry-up turned the corner, with Fred Colon at the reins and Constable Waddy hanging on behind. Vimes heard the shouts. 'What's up, Bill?'

'It's Keel and Vimesy,' Wiglet called back. 'Hurry up!' Vimes tried to avoid Carcer's eyes, tried to appear as if nothing had happened, tried to pretend that the world had not suddenly cracked open and let in the cold winds of infinity. But Carcer was smart. He glanced at Vimes, looked at Sam. 'Vimesy?' he said. 'Your name Sam Vimes, mister?'

'I ain't saying anything,' said Lance-Constable Vimes stoutly. 'Well well, well, well, well,' said Carcer happily. 'Now here's a nice how-d'yer-do, eh? Something for a chap to think about, and no mistake, haha.' There was a creak as the hurry-up wagon rolled to a stop. Carcer glanced up at the round, pale face of Corporal Colon. 'You just go about your business, corporal,' said Carcer. 'You just leave now.' Colon swallowed. Vimes could see his Adam's apple bob as it tried to hide. 'Er . . . we heard the ringing,' he said. 'Just a bit of high spirits,' said Carcer. 'Nothing that need worry you. We're all coppers here, right? I wouldn't like there to be any trouble. There's just been a bit of a misunderstanding, that's all. Sergeant Keel here was just going to hand over my friend there, right, sergeant? No hard feelings, eh? You just happened to blunder into a little operation of ours. Best not to talk about it. Just you hand him over and we'll call it quits.' Every head turned to Vimes. The sensible thing would be to hand the man over. He knew it. And then - probably - Carcer would go away, and he didn't want that man any closer to young Sam than he could help. But Carcer would come back. Oh, yes. Things like Carcer always came back, especially when they thought they'd found a weakness. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that Vimes had changed things.