Snuff

She swept away, leaving the incredulous Feeney staring after her. Then the doors that had just closed behind her opened again, and she said, ‘Are you still a bachelor, young man?’

Feeney managed a ‘Yes’.

‘Then you are invited to tea,’ she said cheerfully. ‘There are some very eligible young ladies coming, and I’m sure that they will be most excited to see a young man who is prepared to dance on the very edge of hell. Do wear your helmet, Sam, in case there is any police brutality. Willikins, come with me. I want to have a talk to you!’

Vimes let the silence curdle. After too much of it, Feeney said, ‘Your wife is a very remarkable woman, sir.’

Vimes nodded. ‘You have no idea. What do you want to do now, chief constable?’

The boy hesitated. That was Sybil for you. Just by speaking calmly and confidently she could leave you believing that the world had turned upside down and dropped on to your head.

‘Well, sir, I believe I must take you before the magistrates?’

Vimes noted the little question mark. ‘Who is your boss, Feeney?’

‘The aforesaid bench of magistrates, sir.’

Vimes began to walk down the steps, and Feeney hurried after him. Vimes waited until the boy was racing, and then stopped dead so that Feeney ran into him. ‘Your boss is the law, chief constable, and don’t you forget it. In fact, one of the jobs of the magistrates is to make certain that you do not! Did you ever take an oath? What did it say? Who was it to?’

‘Oh, I remember that all right, sir. It was to the bench of magistrates, sir.’

‘It … was … what? You made an oath to obey the magistrates? They can’t make you do that!’ He stopped. Remember, in the country there is always somebody watching you, he thought, and probably listening too.

Feeney looked shocked, so Vimes said, ‘Get me down to your lock-up, kid, and lock me in. And while you’re about it, lock yourself in with me. Don’t rush, don’t ask questions, and keep your voice down, apart from possibly saying things like “I have you bang to rights, you miscreant”, and other rubbish of that general nature, because, young man, I believe somebody is in real difficulties here and I believe that person is you. If you have any sense, you’ll keep quiet and take me to your lock-up, okay?’

Eyes wide, Feeney nodded.

It was a pleasant walk down to the lock-up, which turned out to be on a small quay by the river. The area had all the semi-nautical detritus that a man might expect and there was a swing bridge, presumably to allow the bigger boats to pass. The sun shone and nothing was happening, in a slow sort of way. And then there was the much spoken of lock-up. It looked like a giant pepperpot built of stone. A flowering creeper grew up it, and, next to the door and restrained by a chain, there was an enormous pig. When it saw their approach it got on its hind legs, and, tottering somewhat, begged.

‘This is Masher,’ said Feeney. ‘His father was a wild boar, his mother was surprised. See those fangs? No one gives me much trouble when I threaten to let Masher off his lead, do they, Masher?’ He disappeared behind the lock-up and returned immediately with a bucket of swill, into which Masher tried to bury himself, with hugely contented noises – as huge, in fact, as his fangs. Vimes was staring at them when a friendly-looking woman wearing an apron bustled out of a thatched cottage, stopped when she saw Vimes and dropped a curtsy. She looked hopefully at Feeney. ‘Who would this fine gentleman be, son?’

‘It’s Commander Vimes, Mum … You know, the duke.’

There was a pause while the woman clearly wished that she had been wearing a better dress, hairdo, and shoes, and had cleaned the privy, the kitchen, the scullery, and had tidied up the garden, painted the front door and cleaned the inside of the roof.

Vimes prevented her spin from making a hole in the ground by holding out his hand and saying, ‘Sam Vimes, madam, pleased to make your acquaintance,’ but this only caused her to run indoors in a panic.

‘My mum is very keen on the aristocracy,’ Feeney confided as he unlocked the door of the lock-up with an unfeasibly large key.

‘Why?’ said Vimes, mystified. It was reasonably comfortable in the lock-up. Granted, the pigs had left a fragrant memory behind them, but for a boy from Ankh-Morpork this counted as fresh air. Feeney sat down beside him on a well-scrubbed bench. ‘Well, sir, when my granddad was young, Lord Ramkin gave him a whole half-dollar for opening a gate, just to let the hunt go by. According to my dad, he said, “No canting hypocrite going on about the rights of man ever gave me as much as a quarter-farthing so I say here’s to Lord Ramkin, who gave me a whole half-dollar when he was as pissed as a fart, and never asked for it back when he were sober. That’s what I call a gentleman.”’