Snuff

Jiminy gave a little cough as he endeavoured to find another victim for Vimes to pursue. ‘But Flutter, well, you know, he’s just a bloke. If someone needs help for something or other, he’s the kind of bloke who’d be the lookout or be told to take away the bones. When not up to mischief I think he hangs wallpaper and runs a turkey farm up on the road towards Overhang. You can’t miss it, it’s a stinky ol’ place and he doesn’t take care of his birds. Not entirely all there, in my opinion.’

Vimes seized his opening. ‘Tobacco, eh? Oh yes, Mister Jiminy, I did think I smelled rather more tobacco down here than might otherwise be expected, and, of course, as a policeman, it’s something that I’ll have to look into, perhaps, when time allows.’ He winked, and Jiminy nodded knowingly.

With the atmosphere now tentatively upbeat, Jiminy said, ‘They brings a few barrels up here some nights and then picks it up again as and when. All right, I know it’s the revenue and all that, but I don’t see the harm. And since we understand one another so well, Mister Vimes, I’ve been here for only three years. I know there was some stuff way back, maybe they did scrag a few goblins, I don’t know, not my business. Don’t know why, don’t know who, if you get my meaning?’ Jiminy was sweating cobs, Vimes noticed.

There are times when reacting the way that simple, common decency requires fails to serve a higher purpose, and because of this Vimes merely gave the man a little smile and said, ‘One day, Mister Jiminy, I’ll bring a lady here. I think she’d be very interested to see your establishment.’

Jiminy was puzzled but had the grace to say, ‘I’ll look forward to it, commander.’

‘What I’m trying to say,’ said Vimes, ‘is that if this pub still has the head of a goblin hanging over the bar the next time I’m here there’ll be a mysterious fire, do you understand? No doubt you want to keep in with young Lord Rust and his chums, because it always pays to keep in with the powerful. I know that well enough. You’ll find me a good friend, Mister Jiminy, and I’d like to suggest to you that it would not be in your interest to have Commander Vimes as your enemy. Just a word to the wise, you know, one copper to another.’

With forced cheerfulness Jiminy said, in a voice that dripped butter and sugar, ‘No one ever said that Constable Jiminy didn’t know how the wind was blowing, and since you’ve been so gracious as to visit my humble establishment I think I can take the view that the wind has begun to blow due Vimes.’

Vimes lifted the cellar hatch to depart and said, ‘Oh, so do I, Mister Jiminy, so do I, and if ever the weathercock decides to blow the other way, I’ll bite its bloody head off.’

Jiminy smiled uncertainly and said, ‘Do you have jurisdiction here, commander?’

And was dragged by the shirt to within an inch of Vimes’s face, eyeball to eyeball, and Vimes said, ‘Try me.’

Feeling rather chirpy after this interlude, Vimes jogged to the lane that led to the hill and found Miss Beedle and Tears of the Mushroom at the door of the cottage. By the look of it they had been picking apples; several baskets of fruit had been piled up. He thought that Tears of the Mushroom smiled when she saw him, although how could you tell, really? Goblin faces were hard to read.

The pot was dutifully traded back for the picture, and Vimes couldn’t help noticing, because he always made a point of noticing, that both he and the girl tried surreptitiously to examine their precious items without causing offence. He was sure he heard Miss Beedle stifle a sigh of relief. ‘Did you find the murderer?’ she said, leaning forward anxiously. She turned to the girl. ‘Go inside, dear, while I talk to Commander Vimes, will you?’

‘Yes, Miss Beedle, I will go inside as you request.’

There it was again: a language of little boxes, opening and shutting as required. The girl disappeared into the house, and Vimes said, ‘I have information that two men were in the pub on the night of the murder, and one of them certainly had a pot. Neither of them, I’ve been led to believe, was a pillar of society.’

Miss Beedle clapped her hands. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? You have them bang to rights!’

It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was ‘policeman’. If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers. He sighed. ‘As far as I know, miss, it is not illegal to have a goblin pot. Neither is it, strictly speaking, illegal to be described as not a pillar of society. Do goblins sign their pots in some way?’

‘Oh yes, indeed, commander, goblin pots are always distinctive. Do these criminals have a modus operandi?’