Terry Pratchett - Snuff

Sybil nodded sadly, and then sniffed and said, ‘Can you smell smoke?’

Willikins, who had been standing patiently, said, ‘Corporal Nobbs and his, ahem, young … lady wandered off into the shrubbery with Young Sam, your ladyship. Sergeant Detritus accompanied them with what I now believe to be called …’ Willikins savoured the word like a toffee, ‘surreptition.’

This last fact was testified to by the shrubbery itself, because no shrubbery, however large, could hide the fact that a troll had just walked through it.

There was a small, neat fire burning in the shrubbery, watched passively by Detritus and Young Sam, and nervously by Corporal Nobbs, who was watching his new young lady cooking something on a spit.

‘Oh, she’s cooking snails,’ said Sybil, with every sign of approval. ‘What a provident young lady.’

‘Snails?’ said Vimes, shocked.

‘Quite traditional in these parts, as a matter of fact,’ said Sybil. ‘My father and his chums used to cook them up sometimes after a drinking session. Very wholesome, and full of vitamins and minerals, or so I understand. Apparently if you feed them on garlic they taste of garlic.’

Vimes shrugged. ‘I suppose that has to be better than them tasting of snails.’

Sybil pulled Sam off to one side and said quietly, ‘I think the goblin girl is the one that they call Shine of the Rainbow. Felicity says she’s very smart.’

‘Well, I don’t think she’ll get anywhere with Nobby,’ said Vimes. ‘He’s carrying a torch for Verity Pushpram. You know, the fishmonger?’

Sybil whispered, ‘She got engaged last month, Sam. To a lad who’s building up his own fishing fleet.’ They stared through the leaves and tiptoed away.

‘But she’s a goblin!’ said Vimes, out of his depth.

‘And he is Nobby Nobbs, Sam. And she is quite attractive in a goblin sort of way, don’t you think? And to be honest, I’m not sure that even Nobby’s old mother knows what species her son is. Frankly, Sam, it’s not our business.’

‘But what if Young Sam eats snails?’

‘Sam, given what he’s already eaten in his short life I wouldn’t worry, if I was you. I expect the girl knows what she’s doing; they generally do, Sam, believe me. Besides, this is limestone country and there’s nothing poisonous for the snails to eat. Don’t worry, Sam!’

‘Yes, but how will—’

‘Don’t worry, Sam!’

‘Yes, but I mean—’

‘Don’t worry, Sam! There’s a troll and a dwarf in Lobbin Clout who have set up home together, so I’ve heard. Good for them, I say, it’s their business and definitely not ours.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘ Sam! ’

During the afternoon Sam Vimes worried. He wrote dispatches and walked up to the new tower to send them. Goblins were sitting around the tower now, staring at it. He tapped one of them on the shoulder, handed it the messages and watched it climb the tower as if it were horizontal. A couple of minutes later it came down with a smudged confirmation-of-sending slip, which it handed to him along with a couple of other messages before sitting down to stare at the tower again.

He thought: you have lived your life in and around a cave in a hill and now here is this magical thing that sends words, right on your doorstep. That’s got to command respect! Then he opened the two messages that had arrived for him, carefully folded up the papers and walked back down the hill, breathing carefully and taking care not to punch the air and whoop.

When Vimes reached the cottage of the woman who, to Young Sam, would for ever be the poo lady, he stopped to hear the music. It came and went, there were false starts, and then the world revolved as liquid sound called out of the window. Only then did he dare to knock at the door.

Half an hour later, walking with the measured gait of the career copper, he proceeded to the lock-up. Jethro Jefferson was sitting on a stool outside. He was wearing a badge. Feeney was learning fast. The constabulary of the Waterside owned precisely one badge, made of pot metal, and so pinned to the shirt of the blacksmith was a carefully cut out cardboard circle with, inscribed in pains taking handwriting, the words Constable Jefferson works for me. Be told! Signed: Chief Constable Upshot .

There was a second, empty stool by the blacksmith, reflecting the doubling of the staff. Vimes sat down with a grunt. ‘How do you like being a copper, Mister Jefferson?’

‘If you’re looking for Feeney, commander, he’s on his lunch break. And since you ask, I can’t say coppering sits very well with me, but maybe it’s the kind of thing that grows on you. Besides, the smithy is a bit quiet right now, and so’s the crime.’ The blacksmith grinned. ‘No one wants me chasing them. I hear things are happening, right?’

Vimes nodded. ‘When you see Feeney, tell him that the Quirm constabulary has picked up two men who apparently volunteered the information that they had shanghaied you, amongst other misdemeanours, and it seems they have a whole lot of other information that they are desperate to tell us in exchange for a certain amount of clemency.’

Jefferson growled. ‘Give me five minutes with ’em and I’ll show ’em what clemency is.’

‘You’re a copper now, Jethro, so you don’t have to think like that,’ said Vimes cheerfully. ‘Besides, the balls are all lining up.’

Jefferson gave a hollow laugh, laden with malice. ‘I’d line their balls up for them … and just you see how far apart. I was a kid when the first lot were taken and that bloody Rust kid was there all right, yes indeed, urging everybody on and laughing at them poor goblins. And when I ran out into the road to try and stop it, some of his chums gave me a right seeing to. That was just after my dad died. I was a bit innocent in those days, thought that some people were better than me, tipped me hat to gentry and so on, and then I took over the forge and if that don’t kill you it makes you strong.’

And he winked, and Vimes thought, you’ll do. You’ll probably do. You’ve got the fire.

Vimes patted his shirt pocket and heard the reassuring rustle of paper. He was rather proud of the note at the end of the clacks message, which was a personal one from the commandant in Quirm. It read, ‘When they heard that you were on the case, Sam, they were so chatty that we used up two pencils!’

And then Sam Vimes went to the pub just as the men were coming in and sat in the corner nursing a pint of the beetroot juice with a touch of chilli, to help down a snack consisting of one pickled egg and one pickled onion nestling in a packet of crisps. Vimes did not know very much about gastronomy, but he knew what he liked. And, as he sat there, he saw people talking to one another and looking at him, and then one of them walked slowly over, holding his hat in front of him in both hands as if in penitence. ‘Name of Hasty, sir, William Hasty. Thatcher by trade, sir.’

Vimes moved his legs to make room and said, ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Hasty. What can I do for you?’

Mr Hasty looked around at his fellows, and got that mixed assortment of waves and hoarse whispers that adds up to ‘Get on with it!’ Reluctantly he turned back to Vimes, cleared his throat, and said, ‘Well, sir, yes, of course we knew about the goblins and no one liked it much. I mean they’re a bloody nuisance if you forget to lock your chicken coop and suchlike, but we didn’t like what was done, because it wasn’t … I mean, wasn’t right , not done like that, and some of us said we would suffer for it, come the finish, because if they could do that to goblins then what might they think they could do to real people, and some said real or not, it wasn’t right! We’re just ordinary people, sir, tenants and similar, not big, not strong, not important, so who would listen to the likes of us? I mean, what could we have done ?’