Terry Pratchett - The Truth

Then you'd better come back to the office with me,' said William. 'After all, you've been carrying him around while you've been selling the papers, haven't you?'

Too dangerous now,' said Deep Bone.

'Would it be less dangerous for another fifty dollars?' said William.

'Another fifty dollars?' said Arnold Sideways. That'll make it fifteen dollars!'

'A hundred dollars,' said William wearily. 'You do realize, don't you, that this is in the public interest?'

The crew craned their necks.

'Don't see anyone watching,' said Coffin Henry.

William stepped forward, quite accidentally knocking over his tea.

'Come on, then,' he said.

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Mr Tulip was beginning to worry now. This was unusual. In the area of worry, he had tended to be the cause rather than the recipient. But Mr Pin was not acting right, and since Mr Pin was the man who did the thinking this was a matter of some concern. Mr Tulip was good at thinking in split-seconds, and when it came to art appreciation he could easily think in centuries, but he was not happy over middle distances. He needed Mr Pin for that.

But Mr Pin was talking to himself, and kept staring at shadows.

'We'll be heading off now?' said Mr Tulip, in the hope of directing matters. 'We've got the --ing payment with a --ing big bonus, no --ing point in hanging around?'

He was also worried about the way Mr Pin had acted with the --ing lawyer. It wasn't like him to point a weapon at someone and then not use it. The New Firm didn't go round threatening people. They were the threat. All that --ing stuff about 'letting you live for today'... that was amateur stuff.

'I said, are we heading--'

'What do you think happens to people when they die, Tulip?'

Mr Tulip was taken aback. 'What kind of --ing question is that? You &«owwhat happens!'

'Do I?'

'Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that --ing barn and it was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his--'

'I don't mean bodies!'

'Ah. Religion stuff, then?'

'Yes!'

'I never worry about that --ing stuff.'

'Never?'

'Never --ing give it a thought. I've got my potato.'

Then Mr Tulip found that he'd walked a few feet alone, because Mr Pin had stopped dead.

'Potato?'

'Oh, yeah. Keep it on a string round my neck.' Mr Tulip tapped his huge chest.

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'And that's religious?'

'Well, yeah. If you've got your potato when you die, everything will be okay.'

'What religion is that?'

'Dunno. Never ran across it outside our village. I was only a kid. I mean, it's like gods, right? When you're a kid, they say "that's God, that is". Then you grow up and you find there's --ing millions of 'em. Same with religion.'

'And it's all okay if you have a potato when you die?'

'Yep. You're allowed to come back and have another life.'

'Even if...' Mr Pin swallowed, for he was in territory which had never before existed on his internal atlas, '... even if you've done things which people might think were bad?'

'Like chopping up people and --ing shovin' 'em off cliffs?'

'Yeah, that kind of thing

Mr Tulip sniffed, causing his nose to flash. 'We-ell, it's okay so long as you're really --ing sorry about it.'

Mr Pin was amazed, and a little suspicious. But he could feel things... catching up. There were faces in the darkness and voices on the cusp of hearing. He dared not turn his head now, in case he saw anything behind him.

You could buy a sack of potatoes for a dollar.

'It works?' he said.

'Sure. Back home people'd been doing it for hundreds of --ing years. They wouldn't be doing it if it didn't --ing work, would they?'

'Where was that?'

Mr Tulip tried to concentrate on this question, but there were many scabs in his memory.

There was... forests,' he said. 'And... bright candles,' he muttered. 'An'... secrets,' he added, staring into nothing.

'And potatoes?'

Mr Tulip came back to the here and now.

'Yeah, them,' he said. 'Always lots of --ing potatoes. If you've got your potato, it will be all right.'

'But... I thought you had to pray in deserts and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor... ?'

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'Oh, you can do all that too, sure,' said Mr Tulip. 'Just so long as you've got your --ing potato.'

'And you come back alive?' said Mr Pin, still trying to find the small print.

'Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who'd notice the --ing difference?'

Mr Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr Tulip saw his expression change.

'Someone's got their hand on my shoulder!' he hissed.

'You feeling all right, Mr Pin?'

'You can't see anyone?'

'Nope.'

Clenching his fists, Mr Pin turned round. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.

He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.

'Okay. Okay,' he said. 'What we'll do... we'll go back to the house, okay, and... and we'll get the rest of the diamonds, and we'll scrag Charlie, and, and... we'll find a vegetable shop... any special kind of potato?'

'Nope.'

'Right... but first...' Mr Pin stopped, and his mind's ear heard footsteps stop behind him a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things...

Mr Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamour, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.

'That bloody vampire did this,' he said. 'And killing a vampire... hey... that's practically good, right?' He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. 'Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man's favour, eh?'

'Yeah. But... who cares?'

'I do.'

'Okay.' Even Mr Tulip didn't argue with that tone of voice. Mr ,Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was

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that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.

It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath-salt-and-worming-powder-ravaged pathways of his own brain. He'd always admired the way Mr Pin wasn't frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.

'What'll we use?' he said. 'A stake?'

'No,' said Mr Pin. 'With this one I want to be certain.'

He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.

'Ah. Right,' said Mr Tulip.

'Let's just do it,' said Mr Pin.

Rocky's brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.

'What's dem things?' he said.

They're to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,' said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. 'It's a sort of curse. Only it works.'

'Dat one's the Assassins?' said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.

'Yes. It means there's an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.'

'Wouldn't want dem interested in me. Good job you got a key...'

The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.

Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork's great houses, when the owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more respectable charities. She hadn't realized how a building could change when people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale. The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere descended on her like a headache.

Behind her Rocky lit a couple of lanterns. But even their light left her surrounded by shadows.

At least the main staircase wasn't hard to find, and William's hasty directions led her to a suite of rooms bigger than her house.