Snuff (Discworld 39)

There was not so much as an acknowledgment from the impassive horde. Vimes considered that thought. Hordes come in killing and stealing. This lot look like a bunch of worried people. He walked over to a grizzled old goblin who might have been the one he had seen up on the surface a thousand years ago, and said, “I’d like to see more of this place, sir. I’m sorry for the death of the lady. I’ll bring the killers to justice.”

“Just ice!” Once again it echoed around the cave. The old goblin stepped forward very gently and touched Vimes’s sleeve. “The dark is your friend, Mr. Po-leess-maan. I hear you, you hear me. In the dark you may go where you wish. Mr. Po-leess-maan, please do not kill us.”

Vimes looked past the goblin to the ranks behind, most of them as skinny as rakes, and this, well, chieftain probably, who looked as though he was decomposing while standing up, didn’t want him to hurt them? He remembered the scattered flowers. The orphaned bergamot tea. The uneaten meal. They were trying to hide away from me? He nodded and said, “I do not attack anyone who isn’t attacking me, sir, and I will not start today. Can you tell me how this lady came to be…killed?”

“She was thrown into our cave last night, Mr. Po-leess-maan. She had gone out to check the rabbit snares. Thrown down like old bones, Mr. Po-leess-maan, like old bones. No blood in her. Like old bones.”

“What was her name?”

The old goblin looked at Vimes as if shocked, and after a moment said, “Her name was The Pleasant Contrast of the Orange and Yellow Petals in the Flower of the Gorse. Thank you, Mr. Po-leess-maan of the dark.”

“I’m afraid I’m only just starting to investigate this crime,” said Vimes, feeling unusually embarrassed.

“I meant, Mr. Po-leess-maan, thank you for believing that goblins have names. My name is Sound of the Rain on Hard Ground. She was my second wife.”

Vimes stared at the rugged face that only a mother could tolerate and perhaps love, searching for any sign of anger or grief. There was just a sense of sorrow and hopeless resignation at the fact that the world was as it was and always would be and there was nothing that could be done. The goblin was a sigh on legs. In dejection he looked up at Vimes and said, “They used to send hungry dogs into the cave, Mr. Po-leess-maan. Those were good days; we ate well.”

“This is my land,” said Vimes, “and I think I can see to it that you’re not disturbed here.”

Something like a chuckle found its way through the old goblin’s ragged beard. “We know what the law is, Mr. Po-leess-maan. The law is the land. You say “ ‘This is my land,’ but you did not make the land. You did not make your sheep, you did not make the rabbits on which we live, you did not make the cows, or the horses, but you say, ‘These things are mine.’ This cannot be a truth. I make my ax, my pots, and these are mine. What I wear is mine. Some love was mine. Now it has gone. I think you are a good man, Mr. Po-leess-maan, but we see the turning of the times. Maybe a hundred, or two hundred years ago there was in the world what people called ‘the wilderness,’ or ‘no man’s land,’ or ‘wasteland,’ and we lived in such places, we are waste people. There was the troll race, the dwarf race, the human race and I am sorry for the goblin race that we cannot run so fast.”

Somebody pulled at Vimes’s shirt. This time it was Feeney. “You’d best be going now, sir.”

Vimes turned. “Why?”

“Sorry, sir, but her ladyship did instruct you to be back for tea.”

“We’re conducting a murder investigation, chief constable! I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m sure Mr. Rain on Hard Ground here will understand. We must see for ourselves that the missing blacksmith is not here.”

Feeney fidgeted. “I couldn’t help noticing that her Ladyship was very expressive on the subject, sir.”

Vimes nodded to the old goblin. “I’ll find out who killed your wife, sir, and I’ll bring them to justice.” He paused on cue as another chorus of “Just ice!” echoed around the caves. “But first I must, for police reasons, inspect the rest of this…establishment, if you have no objection.”

The goblin looked at him bright-eyed. “And if I object, Mr. Po-leess-maan?”

Vimes matched his stare. “An interesting question,” he said “and if you threatened us with violence I would leave. Indeed, if you forbade me to search then I would leave, and, sir, the worst part is that I would not come back. Sir, I respectfully ask that I may in the pursuit of my inquiries be shown around the rest of these premises.”

Was that a smile on the old goblin’s face? “Of course, Mr. Po-leess-maan.”

Behind the old goblin the rest of the

crowd began to move away, presumably to either make pots or fill them. Rain on Hard Ground, who, it had to be assumed, because nothing had been said to the contrary, was either a chieftain (as Vimes would understand it) or simply a goblin tasked with talking to stupid humans, said, “You are seeking the blacksmith? He visits us sometimes. There is iron down here, not much, but he finds it useful. Of course it is no good for pots, but we trade it for food. I don’t think I have seen him for several days. However, by all means look for him without hindrance. The dark is in you. I would not dare to stand in your way, Mr. Po-leess-maan. Such as it is, this place is yours.”

With that the old goblin beckoned to some juvenile goblins to pick up all that was left of his wife and drifted away toward another cave mouth.

“Have you seen a lot of dead bodies, commander?” said Feeney, in a voice that almost managed not to shake.

“Oh yes, lad, and some of them I helped to make.”

“You’ve killed people?”

Vimes looked at the ceiling so as not to have to look at Feeney’s face. “I like to think I did my best not to,” he said, “and on the whole I’ve been good at that, but sooner or later there’s always going to be somebody who is determined to finish you off and you end up having to take him down the wrong way because he’s just too damn stupid to surrender. It doesn’t get any better, and I’ve never seen a corpse that looked good.”

The funeral group had disappeared into the other cave now, and the two policemen were left alone, but feeling, however, that around them people were going about their business.

The old goblin had just stood there and mentioned that the woman was his wife almost as an afterthought. He hadn’t even raised his voice! Vimes couldn’t have stood there like that if it had been Sybil’s body on the ground in front of him, and as sure as hell he would not be polite to any goblins who were in front of him either. How can you get like that? How can life so beat you down?

The Street was always with you, just as Willikins had said. And Vimes remembered the ladies who scrubbed. Cockbill Street got scrubbed so often that it was surprising it wasn’t now at a lower level than the ground around it. The doorstep was scrubbed, and then whitened; the red tiles on the floor inside were scrubbed and then polished with red lead; and the black cooking stove was blackened even further by being rubbed ferociously with black lead. Women in those days had elbows that moved like pistons. And it was all about survival, and survival was all about pride. You didn’t have much control over your life but by Jimmy you could keep it clean and show the world you were poor but respectable. That was the dread: the dread of falling back, losing standards, becoming no better than those people who bred and fought and stole in that ferocious turmoil of a rookery known as the Shades.