Feet of Clay

Vimes leaned down and gently raised one of the corpse's eyelids. A milky blue eye with a black centre looked back at him from wherever the old priest was now.

A religious old man who lived in a couple of little poky rooms and obviously didn't go out much, from the smell. What kind of threat could he... ?

Constable Visit poked his head around the door. 'There's a dwarf down here with no eyebrows and a frizzled beard says you told him to come, sir,' he said. 'And some citizens say Father Tubelcek is their priest and they want to bury him decently.'

'Ah, that'll be Littlebottom. Send him up,' said Vimes, straightening. Tell the others they'll have to wait.'

Littlebottom climbed the stairs, took in the scene, and managed to reach the window in time to be sick.

'Better now?' said Vimes eventually,

'Er... yes. I hope so.'

‘I'll leave you to it, then.'

'Er... what exactly did you want me to do?' said Littlebottom, but Vimes was already half-way down the stairs.

Angua growled. It was the signal to Carrot that he could open his eyes again.

Women, as Colon had remarked to Carrot once when he thought the lad needed advice, could be funny about little things. Maybe they didn't like to be seen without their make-up on, or insisted on buying smaller suitcases than men even though they always took more clothes. In Angua's case she didn't like to be seen en route from human to werewolf shape, or vice versa. It was just something she had a thing about, she said. Carrot could see her in either shape but not in the various ones she occupied on the way through, in case he never wanted to see her again.

Through werewolf eyes the world was different.

For one thing, it was in black-and-white. At least, that small part of it which as a human she'd thought of as 'vision' was monochrome - but who cared that vision had to take a back seat when smell drove instead, laughing and sticking its arm out of the window and making rude gestures at all the other senses? Afterwards, she always remembered the odours as colours and sounds. Blood was rich brown and deep bass, stale bread was a surprisingly tinkly bright blue, and every human being was a four-dimensional kaleidoscopic symphony. For nasal vision meant seeing through time as well as space: a man could stand still for a minute and, an hour later, there he'd still be, to the nose, his odours barely faded.

She prowled the aisles of the Dwarf Bread Museum, muzzle to the ground. Then she went out into the alley for a while and tried there too.

After five minutes she padded back to Carrot and gave him the signal again.

When he re-opened his eyes she was pulling her shirt on over her head. That was one thing where humans had the edge. You couldn't beat a pair of hands.

'I thought you'd be down the street and following someone,' he said.

'Follow who?' said Angua.

'Pardon?'

'I can smell him, and you, and the bread, and that's it.'

'Nothing else?'

'Dirt. Dust. The usual stuff. Oh, there are some old traces, days old. I know you were in here last week, for example. There are lots of smells. Grease, meat, pine resin for some reason, old food... but I'll swear no living thing's been in here in the last day or so but him and us.'

'But you told me everyone leaves a trail.'

'They do.'

Carrot looked down at the late curator. However you phrased it, however broadly you applied your definitions, he definitely couldn't have committed suicide. Not with a loaf of bread.

'Vampires?' said Carrot. 'They can fly...'

Angua sighed. 'Carrot, I could tell if a vampire had been in here in the last month.'

'There's almost half a dollar in pennies in the drawer,' said Carrot. 'Anyway, a thief would be here for the Battle Bread, wouldn't they? It is a very valuable cultural artefact.'

'Has the poor man got any relatives?' said Angua.

'He's got an elderly sister, I believe. I come in once a month just to have a chat. He lets me handle the exhibits, you know.'

'That must be fun,' said Angua, before she could stop herself.

'It's very... satisfying, yes,' said Carrot solemnly. 'It reminds me of home.'

Angua sighed and stepped into the room behind the little museum. It was like the back rooms of museums everywhere, full of junk and things there is no room for on the shelves and also items of doubtful provenance, such as coins dated '52 BC'. There were some benches with shards of dwarf bread on them, a tidy tool rack with various sizes of kneading hammer, and papers all over the place. Against one wall, and occupying a large part of the room, was an oven.

'He researches old recipes,' said Carrot, who seemed to feel he had to promote the old man's expertise even in death.

Angua opened the oven door. Warmth spilled out into the room. 'Hell of a bake oven,' she said. 'What're these things?'

'Ah ... I see he's been making drop scones,' said Carrot. 'Quite deadly at short range.'

She shut the door. 'Let's get back to the Yard and they can send someone out to—'

Angua stopped.