Snuff (Discworld 39)

Halfway down, Willikins overtook him, saying, “I couldn’t help hearing all that garbage, commander, on account of how I was listening at the door as per section five of the gentleman’s gentleman’s code. What a nerve! You’ll need me to watch your back!”

Vimes shook his head. “I don’t think a civilian should get involved, Willikins.”

Willikins had to run faster, because Vimes was speeding up, but he managed to gasp out, “That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me, commander.” And hurried on regardless.

Something was going on at the lockup—it looked to Vimes as though it might be a domestic disturbance, a ruckus, possibly a fracas or even a free-for-all, in which case it was definitely unlucky for some. A happy thought occurred: yes, maybe it was an affray, always a useful word because nobody is quite certain what it means, but it sounds dangerous.

Vimes burst out laughing as soon as he saw what was going on. Feeney was standing in front of the lockup, his face beetroot red and his ancestral truncheon in his hands. Quite possibly it had already been used on the small mob trying to assault the lockup, because there was a man lying on the floor clutching his groin and groaning. However, Vimes’s lengthy experience told him that the man’s carefully targeted misfortune had a lot to do with Mrs. Upshot, who was in a semicircle of men, all of them ready to jump back as soon as she waved her broomstick at them. “Don’t you dare say my lad Feeney ain’t a copper! He is a copper, and so was his dad, and his granddad and his great-granddad before him.” She paused for a moment and went on, grudgingly, “Pardon me, I tell a lie, he was a criminal, but anyway that’s nearly like being a copper!”

The broomstick made a whooshing sound as she swung it backward and forward. “I know you lot! Some of you is gamekeepers, and some of you is smugglers, and a few of you is bastards, excuse my Klatchian!” By now she had caught sight of Vimes, and pausing only to bring her broomstick down like a mallet on the foot of a man who made a step in the wrong direction, she pointed her finger at Vimes and yelled, “See him? Now he is a gentleman, and also a great copper! You can tell a real copper, like my Henry, gods bless his soul, and Commander Vimes too, ’cos they’ve got proper badges what have been used to open thousands of beer bottles, I dare say, and believe me one of them would hurt you if they tried to stick it up your nose. The flimsy bits of cardboard you boys is waving makes me laugh! Come any further, Davey Hackett,” she said to the nearest man, “and I will shove this broomstick in your ear, trust me, I will!”

Vimes scanned the mob, trying to sort out the vile and dangerous from the innocent and stupid, and was about to brush off a fly from his head when he heard the gasp from the crowd, and saw the arrow on the cobbles and Mrs. Upshot looking at her broom falling into two pieces.

In theory, Mrs. Upshot should have screamed, but she had been around coppers for a long time, and so, face red, she pointed at the broken broom and said, as only an old mum could say, “That cost half a dollar! They don’t grow on trees, you know! It wants paying for!”

Instantly there was the jingle of frantic hands in pockets. One man with great presence of mind removed his hat and coins showered into it. Since ma

ny of these coins were dollars and half-dollars snatched in haste, Mrs. Upshot would clearly be self-sufficient in broomsticks for life.

But Feeney, who had been simmering, smacked the hat to the ground just as it was proffered. “No! That’s like a bribe, Ma! Someone shot at you. I saw the arrow, it came straight out of this lot, right out the middle! Now I want you to go inside, Ma, ’cos I’m not going to lose you as well as Dad, understand? Damn well get inside the house, Ma, the reason being, the moment you shut the door I intend to show these gentlemen their manners!”

Feeney was on fire. If a chestnut had fallen on his head it would have exploded, and his rage, pure righteous rage—the kind of rage in which a man might find the idea and the inclination and, above all, the stamina to beat to death everyone around him—was a pant-wetting concern to the befuddled citizens quite outweighing the secondary one, which was that there was at least six dollars of anybody’s money lying there on the cobbles, and how much of it could they get away with reclaiming?

Vimes did not say a word. There was no room to say a word. A word might dislodge the brake that held retribution in check. Feeney’s ancestral club over his shoulder looked like a warning from the gods. In his hands it would be sudden death. No one dared run; of a certainty, to run would be to make yourself a candidate for whistling oaken crushing.

Now, perhaps, was the time. “Chief Constable Upshot, may I have a word, as one policeman to another?”

Feeney turned on Vimes a bleary look, like a man trying to focus from the other end of the universe. One of the outlying men took this as a cue to leg it, and behind the crowd there was a thump and the voice of Willikins, saying, “Oh, I do beg your pardon, your grace, but this gentleman stumbled over my feet. Regrettably, I have very large feet.” And, to accompany the apology, Willikins held up a man whose nose would probably look a lot better by the end of next week.

All eyes turned to Willikins, except those of Vimes—because there in the shadows, keeping his distance from the mob, was that bloody lawyer again. Not with the mob, obviously, a respectable lawyer could not be part of a mob, oh no, he was just there watching.

Feeney glared at the rest of the men, because tripping can come so easily to a man. “I appreciate your man’s assistance, commander, but this is my manor, if you know what I mean, and I will have my say.”

Feeney was panting heavily, but his gaze swept backward and forward to find the first man to move or even look like someone about to move some time in the future. “I am a policeman! Not always a good one or a clever one, but I am a policeman and the man in my lockup is my prisoner, and I’ll defend him to the death, and if it’s the death of some bastards who stood in front of my old mum with crossbows they didn’t know how to use, well, so be it!” He lowered his voice to less than a scream. “Now, I know you, just like my father did, and granddad too—well some of you at least—and I know you ain’t as bad as all that—”

He stopped for a moment, staring. “What are you doing here, Mr. Stoner? Standing there next to a mob? Have you been making a few pockets jingle?”

“That statement is actionable, young man,” said Stoner.

Vimes carefully made his way to Stoner and whispered, “I won’t say you’re pushing your luck, Mr. Stoner, because your luck ran out the moment you set eyes on me.” He tapped the side of his nose. “A word to the wise: I’ve got big feet too.”

Oblivious to this, Feeney went on, “What I want you all to know is that a few nights ago a goblin girl up on the hill was chopped up while she was pleading for her life. That’s bad. Very bad! And one reason is that a man who can chop up a goblin girl will chop up your sister one day. But I will help my…” Feeney hesitated and then said, “colleague, Commander Vimes, and will bring those responsible to justice. And that ain’t all, oh dear me not by a long chalk, because you see I know, just like you do, that three years ago a load of goblins were grabbed in the night and rounded up to be sent down the river. My poor old dad did what he was told and turned a blind eye, but I ain’t doing the same thing. I don’t know if any of you helped, and right now that don’t concern me overmuch, ’cos folks around here tend to do what they’re told, although maybe some like doing what they’re told more than others.”

Feeney turned around, making certain that all knew they were included. “And I know something else! I know that late yesterday, when we were actually on the way to Hangnails, a bunch of goblins from Overhang were grabbed and put on an ox boat down the river to—”

“What! Why haven’t you told me all this before?” Vimes shouted.

Feeney didn’t look in his direction, keeping his gaze on the mob. “What before? Sorry, commander, but it’s been all go and I only found out just before this bunch arrived, since when it’s all got busy. The boat probably came past here while we were still opening barrels in Hangnails. This lot wanted me to hand over my—your—our prisoner, and then of course my old mum got involved, as it were, and you know it’s always difficult when it involves an old mum. I never told anyone to move, did I?!”

This was to a man in some distress who was almost bent double with his hands on his groin.

“I’m very sorry, er, Feeney, er, Constable, er, Chief Constable Upshot, but I really need the privy, if it’s all the same to you, please, thanking you very much?”

Vimes looked down at the crouching man and said, “Oh, dear me, it’s you, Mr. Stoner! Willikins! Do take him somewhere where he can go about his business, will you? But be sure to bring him back here. And if it turns out that he didn’t really need to do any business, do him the courtesy of making sure that he does.” He wanted to say a great deal more at this time, but this was, after all, Feeney’s patch and the lad was surprisingly good at it, when it came to pushing people who pushed old mums.

And the boy hadn’t finished yet; his mood had simply moved from molten steel to cold, hard iron. “Before I tell you what happens next, gentlemen, I’d like to draw your attention to the goblin sitting up there in the tree, watching you all. All you who are locals know Stinky, and you know sometimes you give him a kick, or sometimes he blags a cigarette off you, and sometimes he runs you a little errand, yes?”

There was a sense of sweating relief among the crowd that the worst appeared to be over now. In fact it had only just begun. “Commander Vimes would like you to know, and so indeed would I, that the law applies to everybody, and that means it applies to goblins as well.”