Feet of Clay (3 page)

I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES
.
I
TURN UP ONLY ONCE
.

The shade of Mr Hopkinson began to fade. ‘It’s simply that I’ve always tried to plan ahead in a sensible way …’

I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES
.

‘That seems very irresponsible …’

IT’S ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME
.

The sedan chair came to a halt outside Pseudopolis Yard. Vimes left the runners to park it and strode in, putting his coat back on.

There had been a time, and it seemed like only yesterday, when the Watch House had been almost empty. There’d be old Sergeant Colon dozing in his chair, and Corporal Nobbs’s washing drying in front of the stove. And then suddenly it had all changed …

Sergeant Colon was waiting for him with a clipboard. ‘Got the reports from the other Watch Houses, sir,’ he said, trotting along beside Vimes.

‘Anything special?’

‘Bin a bit of an odd murder, sir. Down in one of them old houses on Misbegot Bridge. Some old priest. Dunno much about it. The patrol just said it ought to be looked at.’

‘Who found him?’

‘Constable Visit sir.’

‘Oh, gods.’

‘Yessir.’

‘I’ll try to get along there this morning. Anything else?’

‘Corporal Nobbs is sick, sir.’

‘Oh, I know
that
.’

‘I mean
off
sick, sir.’

‘Not his granny’s funeral this time?’

‘Nossir.’

‘How many’s he had this year, by the way?’

‘Seven, sir.’

‘Very odd family, the Nobbses.’

‘Yessir.’

‘Fred, you don’t have to keep calling me “sir”.’

‘Got comp’ny, sir,’ said the sergeant, glancing meaningfully towards a bench in the main office. ‘Come for that alchemy job.’

A dwarf smiled nervously at Vimes.

‘All right,’ said Vimes. ‘I’ll see him in my office.’ He reached into his coat and took out the assassin’s money pouch. ‘Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?’

‘Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we’ll soon be able to afford some more widows.’

Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called
Animal Husbandry
. He’d been a bit worried about the title – you heard stories about strange folk in the country – but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.

Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read.

Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins’ Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn’t get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be
careful
. Vimes
was
good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.

He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold weather. He liked to hear the sounds of the city. But anyone trying to climb up or down to it would run into everything in the way of loose tiles, shifting handholds and treacherous drainpipes that Vimes’s ingenuity could contrive. And Vimes had installed spiked railings down below. They were nice and ornamental but they were, above all, spiky.

So far, Vimes was winning.

There was a tentative knock at the door.

It had issued from the knuckles of the dwarf applicant. Vimes ushered him into the office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You’re an alchemist. Acid stains on your hands and no eyebrows.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Not usual to find a dwarf in that line of work. You people always seem to toil in your uncle’s foundry or something.’

You people
, the dwarf noted. ‘Can’t get the hang of metal,’ he said.

‘A dwarf who can’t get the hang of metal? That must be unique.’

‘Pretty rare, sir. But I was quite good at alchemy.’

‘Guild member?’

‘Not any more, sir.’

‘Oh? How did you leave the guild?’

‘Through the roof, sir. But I’m pretty certain I know what I did wrong.’

Vimes leaned back. ‘The alchemists are always blowing things up. I never heard of them getting sacked for it.’

‘That’s because no one’s ever blown up the Guild Council, sir.’

‘What,
all
of it?’

‘Most of it, sir. All the easily detachable bits, at least.’

Vimes found he was automatically opening the bottom drawer of his desk. He pushed it shut again and, instead, shuffled the papers in front of him. ‘What’s your name, lad?’

The dwarf swallowed. This was clearly the bit he’d been dreading. ‘Littlebottom, sir.’

Vimes didn’t even look up.

‘Ah, yes. It says here. That means you’re from the Uberwald mountain area, yes?’

‘Why … yes, sir,’ said Littlebottom, mildly surprised. Humans generally couldn’t distinguish between dwarf clans.

‘Our Constable Angua comes from there,’ said Vimes. ‘Now … it says here your first name is … can’t read Fred’s handwriting … er …’

There was nothing for it. ‘Cheery, sir,’ said Cheery Littlebottom.

‘Cheery, eh? Good to see the old naming traditions kept up. Cheery Littlebottom. Fine.’

Littlebottom watched carefully. Not the faintest glimmer of amusement had crossed Vimes’s face.

‘Yes, sir. Cheery Littlebottom,’ he said. And there still wasn’t as much as an extra wrinkle there. ‘My father was Jolly. Jolly Littlebottom,’ he added, as one might prod at a bad tooth to see when the pain will come.

‘Really?’

‘And …
his
father was Beaky Littlebottom.’

Not a trace, not a smidgeon of a grin twitched anywhere. Vimes merely pushed the paper aside.

‘Well, we work for a living here, Littlebottom.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We don’t blow things up, Littlebottom.’

‘No, sir. I don’t blow
everything
up, sir. Some just melts.’

Vimes drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Know anything about dead bodies?’

‘They were only mildly concussed, sir.’

Vimes sighed. ‘Listen. I know about how to be a copper. It’s mainly walking and talking. But there’s lots of things I don’t know. You find the scene of a crime and there’s some grey powder on the floor. What is it?
I
don’t know. But you fellows know how to mix things up in bowls and can find out. And maybe the dead person doesn’t seem to have a mark on them. Were they poisoned? It seems we need someone who knows what colour a liver is supposed to be. I want someone who can look at the ashtray and tell me what kind of cigars I smoke.’

‘Pantweed’s Slim Panatellas,’ said Littlebottom automatically.

‘Good gods!’

‘You’ve left the packet on the table, sir.’

Vimes looked down. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘So sometimes it’s an easy answer. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we don’t even know if it was the right question.’

He stood up. ‘I can’t say I like dwarfs much, Littlebottom. But I don’t like trolls or humans either, so I suppose that’s okay. Well, you’re the only applicant. Thirty dollars a month, five dollars living-out allowance, I expect you to work to the job not the clock, there’s some mythical creature called “overtime”, only no one’s even seen its footprints, if troll officers call you a gritsucker they’re out, and if you call them rocks
you’re
out, we’re just one big family and, when you’ve been to a few domestic disputes, Littlebottom, I can assure you that you’ll see the resemblance, we work as a team and we’re pretty much making it up as we go along, and half the time we’re not even certain what the law is, so it can get interesting, technically you’ll rank as a corporal, only don’t go giving orders to real policemen, you’re on a month’s trial, we’ll give you some training just as soon as there’s time, now, find an iconograph and meet me on Misbegot Bridge in … damn … better make it an hour. I’ve got to see about this blasted coat of arms. Still, dead bodies seldom get deader. Sergeant Detritus!’

There was a series of creaks as something heavy moved along the corridor outside and a troll opened the door.

‘Yessir?’

‘This is Corporal Littlebottom. Corporal Cheery Littlebottom, whose father was Jolly Littlebottom.
Give
him his badge, swear him in, show him where everything is. Very good, Corporal?’

‘I shall try to be a credit to the uniform, sir,’ said Littlebottom.

‘Good,’ said Vimes briskly. He looked at Detritus. ‘Incidentally, Sergeant, I’ve got a report here that a troll in uniform nailed one of Chrysoprase’s henchmen to a wall by his ears last night. Know anything about that?’

The troll wrinkled its enormous forehead. ‘Does it say anything ’bout him selling bags of Slab to troll kids?’

‘No. It says he was going to read spiritual literature to his dear old mother,’ said Vimes.

‘Did Hardcore say he saw dis troll’s badge?’

‘No, but he says the troll threatened to ram it where the sun doesn’t shine,’ said Vimes.

Detritus nodded gravely. ‘Dat’s a long way to go just to ruin a good badge,’ he said.

‘By the way,’ said Vimes, ‘that was a lucky guess of yours, guessing that it was Hardcore.’

‘It come to me in a flash, sir,’ said Detritus. ‘I fort: what bastard who sells Slab to kids deserves bein’ nailed up by his ears, sir, and … bingo. Dis idea just formed in my head.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

Cheery Littlebottom looked from one impassive face to the other. The Watchmen’s eyes never left each other’s face, but the words seemed to come from a little distance, as though both of them were reading an invisible script.

Then Detritus shook his head slowly. ‘Musta
been
a impostor, sir. ’S easy to get helmets like ours. None of my trolls’d do anything like dat. Dat would be police brutality, sir.’

‘Glad to hear it. Just for the look of the thing, though, I want you to check the trolls’ lockers. The Silicon Anti-Defamation League are on to this one.’

‘Yes, sir. An’ if I find out it was one of my trolls I will be down on dat troll like a ton of rectang’lar buildin’ things, sir.’

‘Fine. Well, off you go, Littlebottom. Detritus will look after you.’

Littlebottom hesitated. This was uncanny. The man hadn’t mentioned axes, or gold. He hadn’t even said anything like ‘You can make it big in the Watch’. Littlebottom felt really unbalanced.

‘Er … I
did
tell you my name, didn’t I, sir?’

‘Yes. Got it down here,’ said Vimes. ‘Cheery Littlebottom. Yes?’

‘Er … yes. That’s right. Well, thank you, sir.’

Vimes listened to them go down the passage. Then he carefully shut the door and put his coat over his head so that no one would hear him laughing.

‘Cheery Littlebottom!’

Cheery ran after the troll called Detritus. The Watch House was beginning to fill up. And it was clear that the Watch dealt with all
sorts
of things, and that many of them involved shouting.

Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon’s high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a
downcast
expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauze wings glued to its back.

‘—happen to know that trolls don’t have
any
tradition of a Tooth Fairy,’ Colon was saying. ‘Especially not one called’ – he looked down – ‘Clinkerbell. So how about it we just call it breaking and entering without a Thieves’ Guild licence?’

‘Is racial prejudice, not letting trolls have a Tooth Fairy,’ Clinkerbell muttered.

One of the troll guards upended a sack on the desk. Various items of silverware cascaded over the paperwork.

‘And this is what you found under their pillows, was it?’ said Colon.

‘Bless dere little hearts,’ said Clinkerbell.

At the next desk a tired dwarf was arguing with a vampire. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s
not
murder. You’re dead already, right?’

‘He stuck them right in me!’

‘Well, I’ve been down to interview the manager and he said it was an accident. He said he’s got nothing against vampires at all. He says he was merely carrying three boxes of HB Eraser Tips and tripped over the edge of your cloak.’

‘I don’t see why I can’t work where I like!’

‘Yes, but … in a pencil factory?’

Detritus looked down at Littlebottom and grinned. ‘Welcome to life in der big city, Littlebottom,’ he said. ‘Dat’s an int’restin’ name.’

‘Is it?’

‘Most dwarfs have names like Rockheaver or Stronginthearm.’

‘Do they?’

Detritus was not one for the fine detail of relationships, but the edge in Littlebottom’s voice got through to him. ‘’S a good name, though,’ he said.

‘What’s Slab?’ said Cheery.

‘It are chloric ammonium an’ radium mixed up. It give your head a tingle but melts troll brains. Big problem in der mountains and some buggers are makin’ it here in der city and we tryin’ to find how it get up dere. Mr Vimes is lettin’ me run a’ – Detritus concentrated – ‘pub-lic a-ware-ness campaign tellin’ people what happens to buggers who sells it to kids …’ He waved a hand at a large and rather crudely done poster on the wall. It said:

Slab: Jus’ say ‘AarrghaarrghpleeassennononoUGH’.

He pushed open a door.

‘Dis is der ole privy wot we don’t use no more, you can use it for mixin’ up stuff, it the only place we got now, you have to clean it up first ’cos it smells like a toilet in here.’

He opened another door. ‘And this der locker room,’ he said. ‘You got your own peg and dat, and dere’s dese panels for getting changed behind ’cos we knows you dwarfs is modest. It a good life if you don’t weaken. Mr Vimes is okay but he a bit weird about some stuff, he keepin’ on sayin’ stuff like dis city is a meltin’ pot an’ all der scum floats to der top, and stuff like dat. I’ll give you your helmet an’ badge in a minute but first’ – he opened a rather
larger
locker on the other side of the room, which had ‘DTRiTUS’ painted on it – ‘I got to go and hide dis hammer.’