Snuff

  And then, of course, there were the troll drugs. The evidence of their existence worried Flutter so much that he invented new gods to swear to that he knew nothing about them. Vimes believed him. As far as Flutter was concerned, the barrels contained nothing more than tobacco. Good old tobacco, nothing harmful about tobacco, and smuggling it was, well, it really was like a game, everybody knew that. Nothing wrong with outsmarting the revenue, that was what the revenue was for! Vimes thought, isn’t that how I’ve always said it worked? Little crimes breeding big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.

  Flutter was sitting miserably on the opposite seat, possibly fearing being kicked to death by trolls, but then, as Vimes had noted, Flutter probably feared everybody. And so Vimes found it in his heart to offer him not so much a crumb as a bacon sandwich of good news. “You were in the company of a violent man, Ted. You thought you were just going to make life difficult for a copper, and suddenly you were an accessory of the first part to murder and, even if unwittingly, tangled up in extremely serious troll narcotics, the worst there is. But you’ve got into bad company, Ted, and I will say so in court.”

  Hope appeared in Flutter’s red-rimmed eyes, and he said, “That’s very kind of you, sir.” That was it. No swagger, no whining, just gratitude for mercies received and fervently hoped for.

  Vimes leaned forward and offered the bewildered man his snuffbox. Flutter took a large pinch and sniffed it up so hard that the inevitable sneeze tried to escape via his ears. Ignoring this, and the faint haze of brown in the air, Vimes leaned back and said cheerfully, “I’ll have a word with the screws in the Tanty, they always owe me anyway…” Vimes looked at the hopeful face and thought, Blast it. I know they’re pretty crowded right now. A squirt like him would be on a hiding to nothing, whatever I do. Oh well. He carried on, “No, Mr. Flutter, tell you what I’ll do, at least we’ll put you in a cell in Pseudopolis Yard. How about that? It can be lonely in a cell all by yourself, but some might consider that a blessing, especially after fifteen minutes in some parts of the Tanty and, besides, my lads are fairly chatty when there’s not much happening. We also have a better class of rat, the straw is fresh and we don’t gob in your stirabout, and if you’re helpful and don’t keep people awake at night, then you’ll be as right as rain.”

  “You won’t have any trouble from me, commander!” The words came tumbling, frantic to be heard and terrified that they might not.

  “Glad to hear it, Ted,” said Vimes jovially. “I like a man who makes the right choices! Incidentally, Ted, who suggested you play the little trick on the hill?”

  “Honestly, sir, it was Stratford, sir. He said it would be a little joke. And I know what you’re going to ask me next, sir, and I asked him who was behind all this, because it worried me a bit, seeing as I mostly just breed turkeys and roll barrels around, you understand?” Flutter assumed the expression of a simple, honest working man. “He said that if he told me he’d have to kill me, and I said to him, I said, ‘Thank you all the same, Mr. Stratford, but I won’t put you to the trouble’ and kept my mouth shut, ’cos he had a funny look in his eye.” Flutter seemed to think for a moment and added, “He always has a funny look in his eye.”

  Vimes tried to pretend that this was of little interest. Like a man with a butterfly net, a killing jar and a passion to pin to a cork board the last of the very rare Lancre blue butterflies, that has just taken its repose on a thistle nearby, he tried to do nothing to make his quarry take flight.

  In an offhand way he said, “But you do know, don’t you, Ted? I mean, you’re smart, Ted, underneath it all. A lot of people would say that two planks are smarter than you, but frankly you can’t make a success of things in this old world without keeping your eyes open and your ears too, right?”

  But of course, who would tell anything important to a twerp like Flutter? He wasn’t even a henchman—you needed a certain amount of tactical thinking before you could properly hench—but henchmen hang about, and when they’re with someone as thick as Flutter they don’t always guard their tongues.

  Aloud he said, “It’s a shame really, Ted, you being the only one to get banged up for all this, seeing that all you really did was help out a mate for a couple of dollars and a pint, don’t you think? Terrible, ain’t it, that decent folk have to take the rap, yes? Especially when it’s a big rap.” He stopped talking and watched Flutter’s face.

  “Weeeell,” said Flutter, “one day when he was a bit excited he did say to me that Lord Rust depended on him, took him into his confidence and everything and made sure his pockets always jingled, but I reckoned that was nothing but boasting.”

  Vimes was impressed at his own patience and said, “Look, Ted, did you ever hear either of them talk about the goblin girl?”

  A horrible grin suffused the man’s face. “I could if you want me to, commander!”

  Vimes stared at Flutter for a moment and said, “Ted, I want to know things that you have either seen or heard. Not things you may have imagined and, and this is the important bit, Ted, not things made up to please me, right? Otherwise I won’t any longer be your friend…” Vimes stopped to think for a moment. “Did you ever hear Lord Rust or Stratford say anything about the blacksmith?”

  It was an education watching the prisoner rack his brains. He looked like a big dog chewing a toffee. Apparently he found something because his next words were, “The blacksmith? I didn’t know that it was about the blacksmith. Yeah, when we were stacking in the yard young Lord Rust came up to Stratford and said something like, ‘Any news about our friend?’ and, well, Stratford said, ‘Don’t you worry sir, he’s going to see the Queen,’ and they both laughed, sir.” In the silence he said, “Are you all right, sir?”

  Vimes ignored this and said, “Have you any idea what he meant?”

  “Nosir,” said Flutter.

  “Is there anything called the Queen around here? Maybe a public house, perhaps? Maybe a riverboat?” Vimes thought, Yes, they all have strange names, there has to be a Queen among them.

  Once again the dog chewed the toffee. “Sorry, commander, I don’t really know anything about that. No boat on the river called the Queen.”

  Vimes left it at that. It was a result. Not the best result. Nothing that would satisfy Vetinari, but a hint at least of a minor conspiracy to send Jethro to somewhere he did not want to be. Vimes at least had to be satisfied.

  Vimes realized that Flutter was holding up his hand cautiously, like a child half-fearful of a reprimand from the teacher.

  “Yes, Ted?” he said wearily.

  The man lowered his hand. “Will I be able to find a god, sir?”

  “What? Find what god?”

  Flutter looked embarrassed but recovered manfully. “Well, sir, I’m hearing about people who go into prison and find a god, sir, and if you find a god then you get better treatment and maybe you get let out sooner, on account of praying, and I was wondering if I was in the Watch House that there might be more or less chance of god availability, if you get my drift. I don’t want to be a trouble, of course.”

  “Well, Ted, if there was any justice in the universe I think there would be quite a few gods in the Tanty, but if I were you and faced a choice between the possibility of heavenly intervention, and a definite three meals a day that haven’t been spat on and no big blokes snoring in your ear all night and the certain knowledge that if you have to go down on your knees then it will only be to pray, then I would say heaven can wait.”

  The sun was already well up now and Willikins was keeping them moving at a good pace. Vimes took notice of that fact. The Street was talking to him even if it was in fact nothing more than a wide lane. He nudged Feeney awake. “Soon be home now, lad, and I think Mr. Flutter can be housed in your lovely lockup, don’t you?”

  Flutter looked puzzled, and Vimes said, “Good grief, man. Surely you didn’t think I could rush you all the way to Ankh-Morpork in one go? As it is I’ll have to send someone to get so
meone else to come all the way down here with the hurry-up wagon! Don’t worry, the lockup is strong and cozy and made of stone, plus—and I’m led to believe that this is indeed a big plus, this—Mrs. Upshot will probably make you a delicious Bang Suck Muck Muck Dog, with carrots and garden peas. Speciality de Maisonette.”

  Rank has its privileges, Vimes thought, when he alighted near the old lockup a little later. “Chief Constable Upshot, please settle our prisoner down, see that he gets fed and watered and so on and so forth, okay, and, obviously, do the paperwork.”

  “The what, sir?”

  Vimes blinked. “Is it possible, Mr. Feeney, that you don’t know what paperwork is?”

  Feeney was perplexed. “Well, yes, sir, of course, but generally I just jot down the name in my notebook, sir. I mean, I know who he is, and I know where he is and what he’s done. Oh, yes, and since the trouble we had with old Mr. Parsley, after he had a skinful, I also make certain to check if the prisoner is allergic to anything in Bhangbhangduc cuisine. It took me all day to clean out the place, on account of there’d been a tiny bit of winky.” Seeing Vimes’s expression, he went on, “Very popular herb, sir.”

  “Habeas corpus, lad! You want to be the copper here, right? Then Mr. Flutter is your prisoner! You are responsible for him. If he gets ill, then he is your problem, if he dies then he is your corpse, and if he gets out and away then you would find yourself in a situation so problematical that the word ‘problem’ just would not fit the situation. I’m trying to be helpful, honestly, but I could just as easily take him up to the Hall. We’ve got loads of cellars and we could easily bed him down in one of them, no problem. But then if I have to do that, what good are you?”

  Feeney looked shocked. He pulled himself upright. “I wouldn’t hear of that, sir, and neither would my ancestors, sir. After all, we’ve never had anyone who has even been near a murder.”

  “Very well, then, give me a receipt for the prisoner, which is a very important thing, and I’ll go back to the Hall to have a nap.”

  Vimes stepped back as a riverboat came into view and a very small tidal wave of muddy water splashed gently on the little quayside. The boat was another one with paddle wheels; Sybil had explained all about them. An ox patiently trod its way around a treadmill in the bilges and wonderful gearing caused the paddle wheels to turn.

  The pilot of this one waved at him. As it went past he saw a woman in the stern, hanging out clothing, watched by a cat. A good life, at the speed of an ox, he thought, where probably no one is ever going to try to kill you. And, just for a moment, he felt jealous, while a line of barges followed the boat past a flotilla of ducklings. Vimes sighed, got back in the coach, was driven to the Hall by Willikins and, after a very brief shower, sank into the pillows and descended into darkness.

  People said that these days Ankh-Morpork was moving. Others said that while this might be true, so was a sufficiently aged cheese. And, like the hypothetical cheese, it was bursting out of its mold, in this case the outermost walls, which were, in the words of Lord Vetinari, “a corset that should be unlaced.” One of the first to let themselves spread had been Harry King, now, of course, known as Sir Harold King. He was a scallywag, a chancer, a ruthless fighter and a dangerous driver of bargains over the speed limit. Since all this was a bit of a mouthful, he was referred to as a successful businessman, since that more or less amounted to the same thing. And he had the knack of turning rubbish into money. As Captains Carrot and Angua walked along the tow path toward the reedy swamps downriver, Harry King’s flame burned ahead of them. All was grist to the mills of the King of Muck. His armies of workers swept the streets, emptied the cesspits, cleaned the chimneys, scoured the middens of the slaughterhouse district and carried away from those selfsame houses all those bits of previously living matter that could not, for the love of decency, be put in a sausage. They said that Harry King would suck the smoke out of the air if he thought he could get a good price for it. And if you wanted a job, Harry King would give you one, at a wage not very much less than you might get elsewhere in the city, and if you stole from Harry King you would get what you deserved. The mills of Harry King stank, of course, but now the city itself did not, at least not as badly as it used to, and some people were complaining about the loss of the famous Ankh-Morpork smell, rumored to be so strong that it kept away illnesses and ailments of all sorts and, moreover, put hairs on your chest and did you good.

  Ankh-Morpork being what it was, there was already a Smell Preservation Society.

  The two watchmen began to breathe less deeply as they approached the smoke and fumes. A small city surrounded the workings, a shanty town knocked together with Harry’s blessing by the workers themselves because, after all, that meant they wouldn’t be late for work.

  The security officer at the gate opened it instantly as they approached. Harry was probably not honest, but if there was dishonesty it happened at times and places that did not concern the Watch, and faded from the memory of all concerned just as soon as the ripples of the splash had died away and the tide had gone out.

  Also going out as Carrot and Angua climbed the outside steps to the large office where Harry presided over his kingdom was a man, moving horizontally at speed, with Harry King’s big hands grasping him by his collar and the seat of his pants and finally throwing him down the steps, accompanied by a shout, “You’re fired!” The watchmen stood aside as the man rolled down from step to step. “And if I see you again, the dogs is always hungry! Oh, hello, Captain Carrot,” said Harry, his voice suddenly all matey, “and the charming Miss Angua too. My word, what a lovely surprise, do come in, always a pleasure to be of assistance to the Watch!”

  “Sir Harry, you really shouldn’t throw people down the steps like that,” said Carrot.

  Harry King looked innocent and spread his huge hands widely, and said, “What? Are those bloody steps still there? I gave orders to have them taken away! Thank you for the advice, captain, but the way I see it is that I caught him trying to steal my money and so if he’s still alive then on the whole I reckon we’re square. Coffee? Tea? Something stronger? No, I thought not, but take a seat, no harm in that, at least.”

  They sat down and Carrot said, “We need to talk about goblins.”

  Harry King looked blank, but said, “Got a few of them working for me, if that’s any help. Decent workers, you might be surprised to know. A bit weird in their ways, not the fastest, but once they’ve got the hang of what you want them to do you can just leave them to it until you tell them to stop. I pay them half what I pay humans and I reckon they do twice as much work, and do it better. Be happy to hire another hundred if they turned up.”

  “But you pay them far less than humans?” said Angua.

  Harry gave her a pitying look. “And who else would pay them anything at all, love? Well, business is business. It’s not like I chain them down. Okay, not many people would want to employ goblins on account of the stink, but I know by the wrinkling of your pretty nose, captain, that I stink too. It goes with the job. Besides, I let them stay on my land and they make those weird little pots in their spare time, and I see to it they don’t have much of that, and when they have enough money for whatever they want, they bugger off back to where they came from. Young Slick and his granny are the only ones that’s ever stayed. Gonna make a name for himself, that one.”

  “We’d like to talk to some of the goblins about the pots you mentioned, if that’s okay by you, Harry?” said Carrot.

  Harry King smiled and waggled a finger at him. “Now, I’ll take that from you two, because we’ve all seen a bit of the world and know what’s what, but outside this office it’s Sir Harry, okay? Personally, I ain’t all that bothered, but her ladyship is a stickler, oh my word, yes! Nose so high in the air it brings down sparrows, I’m telling you! Still, I can’t say it does any harm.” Harry King, or possibly Sir Harold King, thought for a moment. “Out of interest, why do you want to talk about goblin pots?”

  Angua hesitated,
but Carrot said, “We are both very interested in goblin folklore, Sir Harry.”

  Harry King chuckled. “You know, I never could read your face, Captain Carrot. I’d hate to play poker with you! Okay, it’s not my business, I’ll take you at your word. Just you go down the steps and make your way to the sorting belts and find Billy Slick, and tell him that Harry King would deem it a favor if he would be so good as to take you to see his old granny, okay? No need to thank me, I suspect old Vimes put in a good word about me to Vetinari when the medals was being given out, if you know what I mean. They say one hand washes the other, but I bet that when it came to old Harry King it had to scrub.”

  They found Billy Slick stacking old copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times onto a truck. You could always recognize a goblin, although this one, in his grubby overall, looked like any other working man in the place. The only difference was that he was a goblin working man.

  Carrot tapped him gently on the shoulder and Billy looked round. “Oh, coppers.”

  “We’ve come from Harry King, Billy,” said Carrot, adding quickly, “You’ve done nothing wrong. We just want to learn about unggue pots.”

  “You want to learn about unggue?” Billy stared at Carrot. “I know I ain’t done nothing wrong, guv, and I don’t need you to do the telling of me and I wouldn’t touch any of those bloody pots to save my life. I’m working my way up, I am. Can’t be bothered with fairy stories.”

  Angua stepped forward and said, “Mr. Slick, this is quite important. We need to find someone who can tell us about unggue pots. Do you know anyone who can help?”

  Billy looked her up and down superciliously. “You’re a werewolf, ain’t ya? Can smell you a mile off. And what would you do if I said I didn’t know anybody?”

  “Then,” said Carrot, “we would regrettably have to go about our business.”