Snuff

Sam Vimes was certain that he did have the wrong idea and his brow wrinkled as he said, ‘I don’t know, Sybil, how does a bull go at a gate? Does it just stop and look puzzled?’

‘No, dear, it smashes everything to pieces.’

Lady Sybil gave a warning smile and brushed herself down. ‘I don’t think we need detain you any longer, after all, Mister Upshot,’ she said to the grateful Feeney. ‘Do remember me to your dear mother. If she doesn’t mind, I’d like to meet her while I’m down here again to talk about old times. In the meantime I suggest you leave via the kitchen, no matter what my husband thinks about a policeman using the servants’ entrance, and tell Cook to supply you with, well, anything your mother would like.’

She turned to her husband. ‘Why don’t you escort him down there, Sam? And since you’re enjoying the fresh air, why not go and find Young Sam? I think he’s back in the barnyard, with Willikins.’

Feeney was silent as they went down the long corridors, but Vimes sensed the boy’s mind working its way through a problem, which came out when he said, ‘Lady Sybil is a very nice kind lady, isn’t she, sir?’

‘I do not need to be reminded of that,’ said Vimes, ‘and I’d like you to understand that she stands in vivid contrast to me. I get edgy when I think there’s a crime unsolved. A crime unsolved is against nature.’

‘I keep thinking of the goblin girl, sir. She looked like a statue, and the way she spoke, well, I don’t know what to say. I mean, they can be a bloody nuisance – they’ll have the laces out of your boots if you don’t move quick enough – but when you see them in their cave you realize there’s, well, kids, old granddad goblins and—’

‘Old mum goblins?’ Vimes suggested quietly.

Once again, Mrs Upshot’s little boy struggled in the unfamiliar and terrifying grip of philosophy and fetched up with, ‘Well, sir, I dare say cows make good mothers, but at the end of the day a calf is veal on the hoof, yes?’

‘Maybe, but what would you say if the calf walked up to you and said, “Hello, my name is Tears of the Mushroom”?’

Feeney’s face once again frowned in the effort of novel cogitation. ‘I think I’d have the salad, sir.’

Vimes smiled. ‘You were in a difficult position, lad, and I’ll tell you something: so am I. It’s called being a copper. That’s why I like it when they run. That makes it all so simple. They run and I chase. I don’t know if it’s metaphysical, or something like that. But there was a corpse. You saw it, so did I and so did Miss Beedle. Keep that in mind.’

Young Sam was sitting on a hay bale in the farmyard, watching the horses come in. He ran to his dad, looking very pleased with himself, and said, ‘Dad, you know chickens?’

Vimes picked up his son and said, ‘Yes, I have heard of them, Sam.’

Young Sam wriggled out of his father’s grasp as if being picked up and swung around was inappropriate activity for a serious researcher in scatological studies, and looked solemn. ‘Do you know, Dad, that when a chicken does a poo, there’s a white bit on top which is the wee? Sometimes it’s like the icing on a bun, Dad!’

‘Thank you for letting me know,’ said Vimes. ‘I’ll remember that next time I eat a bun.’ And every time after that, he added to himself. ‘I suppose you know everything about poo now, Sam?’ he said hopefully, and he saw Willikins smile.

Young Sam, still staring at a pile of chicken droppings through a little magnifying glass, shook his head without looking up. ‘Oh no, Dad, Mister …’ Here, Young Sam stopped and looked at Willikins hopefully.

Willikins cleared his throat and said, ‘Mister Trout, one of the gamekeepers, was around half an hour ago, and of course your lad will strike up a conversation with anybody, and the upshot is that young Sam, it would appear, sir, would like to amass a collection of the droppings of a number of woodland creatures.’

Gamekeepers, thought Vimes. He ran that across his brain and thought about who had actually rounded the goblins up three years ago. And then he thought, how important is that compared with the question who told them to? I think I’ve got the smell of this place: people do what they’re told because they’ve always done what they’re told. But gamekeepers are a canny lot; it’s not just human beings they have to outsmart. And remember, this is the countryside, where everybody knows everybody else, and notices everybody else. I don’t think Feeney is lying, so other people know what happened here one night three years ago. I mustn’t be a bull at a gate, Sybil said, and she’s right. I need to know where I’m treading. What happened happened three years ago. I can afford to take my time over this one. Aloud he said, ‘How far can I take this?’