Terry Pratchett: Snuff

But now he stopped to call through the open door to Sergeant Littlebottom, who was acting as his orderly.

‘Anything yet, Cheery?’ he said hopefully.

‘Not in the way I think you mean, sir, but I think you’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve just had a clacks message from Acting Captain Haddock down in Quirm, sir. He says he’s getting on fine, sir, and really enjoying the avec.’ [1] The exchange scheme with the Quirm gendarmerie was working very well: they were getting instruction on policing à la Vimes, while the food in the Pseudopolis Yard canteen had been improved out of all recognition by Captain Emile, even though he used far too much avec.

Vimes sighed. ‘Anything else?’

‘Dead as a doorknob, sir,’ said the dwarf, poking her head around the door. ‘It’s the heat, sir, it’s too hot to fight and too sticky to steal. Isn’t that wonderful, sir?’

Vimes grunted. ‘Where there are policemen there’s crime, sergeant, remember that.’

‘Yes, I do, sir, although I think it sounds better with a little reordering of the words.’

‘I suppose there’s no chance at all that I’ll be let off?’

Sergeant Littlebottom looked concerned. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I think there’s no appeal. Officially Captain Carrot will relieve you of your badge at noon.’

Vimes thumped his desk and exploded. ‘I don’t deserve this treatment after a lifetime of dedication to the city!’

‘Commander, if I may say so, you deserve a lot more.’

Vimes leaned back in his chair and groaned. ‘You too, Cheery?’

‘I really am very sorry, sir. I know this is hard for you.’

‘To be forced out after all this time! I begged, you know, and that doesn’t come easy to a man like me, you can be sure. Begged!’

There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. Cheery watched as Vimes pulled a brown envelope out of his desk drawer, inserted something into it, licked it ferociously, sealed it with a spit and dropped it on his desk, where it clanged. ‘There,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘My badge, just like Vetinari ordered. I put it down. It won’t be said they took it off me!’

Captain Carrot stepped into the office, ducking briefly as he came through the door. He had a package in his hand and several grinning coppers were clustered behind him.

‘Sorry about this, sir, higher authority and all that. If it’s any help I think you’ve been lucky to be let off with two weeks. She was originally talking about a month.’

He handed Vimes the package and coughed. ‘Me and the lads had a bit of a whip-round, commander,’ he said with a forced grin.

‘I prefer something sensible like Chief Constable,’ said Vimes, grabbing the package. ‘Do you know, I reckoned that if I let them give me enough titles I’d eventually get one I could live with.’

He tore open the package and pulled out a very small and colourful bucket and spade, to the general amusement of the surreptitious onlookers.

‘We know you’re not going to the seaside, sir,’ Carrot began, ‘but …’

‘I wish it was the seaside,’ Vimes complained. ‘You get shipwrecks at the seaside, you get smugglers at the seaside and you get drownings and crime at the flaming seaside! Something interesting!’

‘Lady Sybil says you’re bound to find lots to amuse yourself with, sir,’ said Carrot.

Vimes grunted. ‘The countryside! What’s to amuse you in the countryside? Do you know why it’s called the countryside, Carrot? Because there’s bloody nothing there except damn trees, which we’re supposed to make a fuss about, but really they’re just stiff weeds! It’s dull! It’s nothing but a long Sunday! And I’m going to have to meet nobby people!’

‘Sir, you’ll enjoy it. I’ve never known you to take even a day off unless you were injured,’ said Carrot.

‘And even then he worried and grumbled every moment,’ said a voice at the doorway. It belonged to Lady Sybil Vimes, and Vimes found himself resenting the way his men deferred to her. He loved Lady Sybil to distraction, of course, but he couldn’t help noticing how, these days, his bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich was no longer, as it had been traditionally, bacon, tomato and lettuce but had become a lettuce, tomatoand bacon sandwich. It was all about health, of course. It was a conspiracy. Why did they never find a vegetable that was bad for you, hey? And what was so wrong with onion gravy anyway? It had onions in it, didn’t it? They made you fart, didn’t they? That was good for you, wasn’t it? He was sure he had read that somewhere.

Two weeks’ holiday with every meal overseen by his wife. It didn’t bear thinking about, but he did anyway. And then there was Young Sam, growing up like a weed and into everything. A holiday in the fresh air would do him good, his mother said. Vimes hadn’t argued. There was no point in arguing with Sybil, because even if you thought that you’d won, it would turn out, by some magic unavailable to husbands, that you had, in fact, been totally misinformed.

At least he was allowed to leave the city wearing his armour. It was part of him, and just as battered as he was, except that in the case of the armour the dents could be hammered out.

Vimes, with his son on his knee, stared out at the departing city as the coach hurried him towards a fortnight of bucolic slumber. He felt like a man banished. But, to look on the bright side, there was bound to be some horrible murder or dreadful theft in the city which for the very important purposes of morale, if nothing else, would require the presence of the head of the Watch. He could but hope.

Sam Vimes had known ever since their marriage that his wife had a place out in the country. One of the reasons he knew this was because she had given it to him. In fact, she had transferred all the holdings of her family, said family consisting solely of her at that point, to him in the old-fashioned but endearing belief that a husband should be the one doing the owning. [2] And thenceforth would be glad to get a gentle second place in almost every domestic decision. Lady Sybil took the view that her darling husband’s word was law for the City Watch while, in her own case, it was a polite suggestion to be graciously considered. She had insisted.

Periodically, according to the season, a cart had come from the country house all the way to their home in Scoone Avenue, Ankh-Morpork, loaded with fruits and vegetables, cheeses and meats; all the produce of an estate that he’d never seen. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing it now. One thing he knew about the country was that it squelched underfoot. Admittedly most of the streets of Ankh-Morpork squelched underfoot, but, well, that was the right kind of squelch and a squelch that he had squelched ever since he could walk and, inevitably, slip.

The place was officially called Crundells, although it was always referred to as Ramkin Hall. Apparently it had a mile of trout stream and, Vimes seemed to recall from the deeds, a pub. Vimes knew how you could own a pub but he wondered how you could own a trout stream because, if that was your bit, it had already gurgled off downstream while you were watching it, yes? That meant somebody else was now fishing in your water, the bastard! And the bit in front of you now had recently belonged to the bloke upstream; that bloated plutocrat of a fat neighbour now probably considered you some kind of poacher, that other bastard! And the fish swam everywhere, didn’t they? How did you know which ones were yours? Perhaps they were branded — that sounded very countryside to Vimes. To be in the countryside you had to be permanently on the defensive; quite the opposite of the city.