Snuff

The colonel was all smiles. ‘This evening I intend to settle my differences with drink and make it my friend.’

The rest of the magistrates looked at Mrs Colonel, who glared at her husband. ‘I’ll talk to you about this later, Charles,’ she growled.

To her surprise, his smile did not change. ‘Yes, dear, I suspect you will, but I think you’ll find that I won’t be listening. Good evening to you all.’ There was a click as the door shut behind him. There should have been a slam, but some doors never quite understand the situation.

The goblin was already moving quite fast with a dot-and-carry-one gait that was deceptively speedy. Vimes was surprised to find that Feeney made heavy weather of the little jog towards – he was not surprised – Hangman’s Hill. He could hear the boy wheezing slightly. Perhaps you didn’t need to be all that fast to overtake a wayward pig, but you needed to be very

fast indeed to catch up with a young troll blizzarded to the eyeballs with Slice and you needed lots of stamina to overtake him and slap the cuffs on him before he came down enough to try to twist your head off. Policing was obviously very different in the country.

In the country, there is always somebody watching you, he thought as they sped along. Well, there was always somebody watching you in the city, too, but that was generally in the hope that you might drop dead and they could run off with your wallet. They were never interested. But here he thought he could feel many eyes on him. Maybe they belonged to squirrels or badgers, or whatever the damn things were that Vimes heard at night-time; gorillas, possibly.

He had no idea what he was going to see, but certainly didn’t expect to find the top of the hill bright with lines of rope, painted yellow. He gave it only a second’s glance, however. With their backs to one of the trees, and looking very apprehensive, were three goblins. One of them stood up, thus bringing its head and therefore its eyes to a level in the vicinity of Vimes’s groin, not a good position to find himself. It held up a wrinkled hand and said, ‘Vimes? Hang!’

Vimes stared down at it and then at Feeney. ‘What does he mean, “Hang”?’

‘Never been quite sure,’ said Feeney. ‘Something like, have a nice day, I think, only in goblin.’

‘Vimes!’ the old goblin continued. ‘It said be, you be Po-leess-maan. It be big po-leess-maan! If po-leess-maan, then just ice! But just ice it be no! And when dark inside dark! Dark moving! Dark must come, Vimes! Dark rises! Just ice!’

Vimes had no idea of the sex of the speaker, or even its age. Dress wasn’t a clue: goblins apparently wore anything that could be tied on. Its companions were watching him unblinkingly. They had stone axes, flint, vicious stuff, but it lost its edge after a couple of blows, which was no consolation when you were bleeding from the neck. He had heard that they were berserk fighters, too. Oh, and what was the other thing people said? Ah yes, whatever you do, don’t let them scratch you …

‘You want justice, do you? Justice for what?’

The goblin speaker stared at him and said, ‘Come with me, po-leess-maan,’ the words rolling out like a curse, or, at least, a threat. The speaker turned and began to walk solemnly down the far side of the hill. The other three goblins, including the one known to Vimes as Stinky, did not move.

Feeney whispered, ‘This could be a trap, sir.’

Vimes rolled his eyes and sneered, ‘You think so, do you? I thought it was probably an invitation to a magical show featuring the Amazing Bonko and Doris and the Collapsing Unicycle Brothers with Fido the Cat. What’s this yellow rope all about, Mister Upshot?’

‘Police cordon, sir. My mum knitted it for me.’

‘Oh yes, I can see she’s managed to work the word PLICE in black in there several times, too.’

‘Yes, sir, sorry about the spelling, sir,’ said Feeney, clearly spooked by the stares. He went on, ‘There was blood all over the ground, sir, so I scraped some into a clean jam jar, just in case.’

Vimes paid that no attention, because the two goblin guards had unfolded and were standing up. Stinky beckoned Vimes to walk ahead of them. Vimes shook his head, folded his arms and turned to Feeney.

‘Let me tell you what you thought, Mister Upshot. You acted on information received, didn’t you? And you heard that the blacksmith and I indulged in a bout of fisticuffs outside the pub yesterday, and that is true. No doubt you were also told that at some time later someone heard a conversation in which he arranged to meet me up at this place, yes? Don’t bother to answer, I can see it in your face – you haven’t quite got the copper’s deadpan yet. Has Mister Jefferson gone missing?’

Feeney gave up. ‘Yes, Mister Vimes.’

He didn’t deserve, or perhaps he did deserve, the force with which Vimes turned on him.