Snuff

Vimes felt for the man, who seemed puzzled at having developed enemies among the lower crustacea. ‘Well, er, does lobster like me, dear?’ he said, in a voice that did not express much hope.

‘No, dear, it does not get on with you at all. Remember what happened at the Parsleys’ whist evening.’

The man looked at the groaning sideboard and tried: ‘Do you think the scallops could get on with me for five minutes or so?’

‘Good heavens no, Charles.’

He cast a glance at the sideboard again. ‘I expect the green salad is my bosom friend, though, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely, dear!’

‘Yes, I thought so.’

The man looked across at Vimes and gave him a hopeless grin followed by, ‘I am given to believe that you are a policeman, your grace. That right?’

Vimes took proper stock of him for the first time: a whiskery old warrior, now out to grass – and that was probably all his wife was going to let him eat without an argument. He had burn scars on his face and hands and the accent of Pseudopolis. Easy. ‘You were with the Light Dragons, weren’t you, sir?’

The old man looked pleased. ‘Well done, that man! Not many people remember us. Alas, I’m the only one left. Colonel Charles Augustus Makepeace – strange name for a military man, or perhaps not, I don’t know.’ He sniffed. ‘We’re just a scorched page in the history of warfare. I dare say you haven’t read my memoirs, Twenty-four Years Without Eyebrows? No? Well, you are not alone in that, I have to say. Met your missus in those days. She told us it would be totally impossible to breed dragons stable enough for use in warfare. She was right, and no mistake. Of course, we went on trying, because that’s the military way!’

‘You mean, pile dreadful failure on top of failure?’ said Vimes.

The colonel laughed. ‘Well, it works sometimes! I still keep a few dragons, though. Wouldn’t be without ’em. A day without a singe is a day without sunshine. They’re a great saving in matches, and, of course, they keep undesirables away, too.’

Vimes reacted like an angler who, after some time dozing by the water’s edge, felt that the fish were rising.

‘Oh, you don’t get many of them around here, surely?’

‘You think so? You don’t know the half of it, young man. I can tell you a few stories—’

He stopped talking abruptly, and Vimes’s experience of husbandry told him that the man had just been kicked under the table by his wife, who did not look happy and, to judge by the lines on her face, probably never had. She leaned past her husband, who was now accepting another brandy from the waiter, and said, icily, ‘As a policeman, your grace, does your jurisdiction extend to the Shires?’

Another ring in the water, thought the angler inside Vimes’s head. He said, ‘No, madam, my beat is Ankh-Morpork and some of the surrounding area. Traditionally, however, the policeman drags his jurisdiction with him if he is in hot pursuit in connection with crime committed within his domain. But, of course, Ankh-Morpork is a long way from here, and I doubt if I’d be able to run that far.’ This got a laugh from the table in general and a thin-lipped smile from Mrs Colonel.

Play the fish, play the fish … ‘Nevertheless,’ Vimes continued, ‘if I was to witness an arrestable offence here and now, I’d have the authority to make an arrest. Like a citizen’s arrest, but somewhat more professional, and after that I’d be required to turn the suspect over to the local force or other suitable authority, as I deemed fit.’

The clergyman, whom Vimes had noticed out of the corner of his eye, was taking an interest in this conversation and leaned forward to say, ‘As you deem fit, your grace?’

‘My grace would not come into it, sir. As a sworn member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch it would be my bounden duty to ensure the safety of my suspect. Ideally I’d look for a lock-up. We don’t have them in the city any more, but I understand most rural areas still do, even if they only hold drunks and escaped pigs.’

There was laughter, and Miss Beedle said, ‘We do have a village constable, your grace, and he keeps pigs in the lock-up down by the old bridge!’

She looked brightly at Vimes, whose expression was stony. He said, ‘Does he ever put people in there? Does he have a warrant card? Does he have a badge?’

‘Well, he puts the occasional drunk in there to sober up, and he says the pigs don’t seem to mind, but I have no idea what a warrant card is.’

There was more laughter at this but it faded quickly, sucked into nowhere by Vimes’s implacable silence.

Then he said, ‘I would not consider him to be a policeman, and until I found that he was working within a framework of proper law enforcement I would regard him not as a policeman by my standards but as a slightly bossy street cleaner. Of some use, but not a policeman.’

‘By your standards, your grace?’ said the clergyman.

‘Yes, sir, by my standards. My decision. My responsibility. My experience. My arse if things go wrong.’