Night Watch

grabbed Ferret, who was trying to squeeze into a corner.
    “No! Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” the man yelled.
    “Really?” said Vimes. “What’s the orbital velocity of the moon?”
    “What?”
    “Oh, you’d like something simpler?” said Vimes, dragging the man out of the cell. “Fred! Waddy! He wants to talk! Bring a notebook!”
    It took half an hour. Fred Colon wasn’t a fast writer. And when the painful sound of his efforts concluded with the stab of his last full stop, Vimes said: “Okay, sir. And now you write down at the end: I, Gerald Leastways, currently staying at the Young Men’s Pagan Association, am making this statement of my own free will and not under duress. And then you sign it. Or else. Got it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The initials GL had been inscribed on the dagger. Vimes believed them. He met plenty of Leastwayses in his career, and they tended to spill their guts at the mere thought of spilling their guts. And when they did, you got everything. Anyone who had seen the ginger beer trick used on someone else would confess to anything.
    “Well, now,” he said cheerfully, standing up. “Thank you for your cooperation. Want a lift to Cable Street?”
    Ferret’s expression, if not his mouth, said “huh?”
    “We’ve got to drop off your friends,” Vimes went on, raising his voice slightly. “Todzy and Muffer. We’ll drop the dead one off at the mortuary. Just a bit of paperwork for you.” He nodded at Colon. “One copy of your helpful statement. One certificate of death from the pox doctor for the late mystery man, and rest assured we’ll try to track down his murderer. A chitty from Mossy about the ointment he put on Muffer’s feet. Oh…and a receipt for six bottles of ginger beer.”
    He put a hand on Ferret’s shoulder and gently walked him around into the next cellar, where Todzy and Muffer were sitting gagged, bound and livid with rage. On a table nearby was a box containing six bottles of ginger beer. The corks were heavily wired down.
    Ferret stared at Vimes, who inserted a finger in his mouth, blew up his cheeks and flicked out the finger with a loud pop.
    Waddy hissed between his teeth.
    Fred Colon opened his mouth but Vimes clamped his hand over it.
    “No, don’t,” he said. “Funny thing, Gerald, but Fred here just screams out loud at times for no reason at all.”
    “You tricked me!” Ferret wailed.
    Vimes patted him on the shoulder.
    “Trick?” he growled. “How so, Gerald?”
    “You made me think you were doing the ginger-beer trick!”
    “Ginger-beer trick?” said Vimes, his brow wrinkling. “What’s that?”
    “You know! You brought the stuff down here!”
    “We don’t drink alcohol on duty, Gerald. What’s wrong with a little ginger beer? We don’t know any tricks with the stuff, Gerald. What tricks do you know? Seen any good tricks lately, Gerald? Do tell!”
    At last it dawned on the Ferret that he should stop talking. It was about half an hour too late. The expressions on what could be seen of the faces of Todzy and Muffer suggested that they wanted a very personal word with him.
    “I demand protective custody,” he managed.

“Just when I’m letting you go , Gerald?” said Vimes. “As you said in your statement…what was it, Fred? Something about just obeying orders? All that stuff about mixing with the mobs and throwing things at coppers and soldiers, you didn’t want to do that, I know. You didn’t like being round in Cable Street watching people being beaten up and being told what to confess to, ’cos it’s plain to me that you’re not that sort. You’re small fry, I understand that. I say we’ll call it quits, how about you?”
    “Please! I’ll tell you all I know!” Ferret squeaked.
    “You mean you haven’t ?” Vimes roared. He spun around and grabbed a bottle.
    “Yes! No! I mean, if I sit quiet I’m sure I’ll remember some more!”
    Vimes held his gaze for a moment, and then dropped the bottle back in the crate.
    “All right,” he said. “It’ll be a dollar a day, meals extra.”
    “Right you are, sir!”
    Vimes watched Ferret scuttle back into his cell and shut the door behind him. Vimes turned to Fred and Waddy.
    “Go and wake up Marilyn,” he said. “Let’s deliver the other three.”

    The rain was falling steadily and a thin mist filled Cable Street.
    The wagon came out of nowhere. Fred had urged Marilyn into something approaching a canter down the street, and when the