Snuff

commander, I don’t think she does, at least as an actual fact. She just knows you. Perhaps you should think of it as amiable suspicion. We should be getting along, commander. I’m told there is chicken salad for lunch.”
    â€œDo I like chicken salad?”
    â€œYes, commander, her ladyship tells me that you do.”
    Vimes gave in. “Then I do.”

B ack in Scoone Avenue, Vimes and Sybil generally took only one meal a day together, in the kitchen, which was always pleasantly snug by then. They sat facing one another at the table, which was long enough to carry Vimes’s huge collection of sauce bottles, mustard pots, pickles and, of course, chutneys, Vimes being of the popular persuasion that no jar of pickles is ever truly empty if you rattle the spoon around inside it long enough.
    Things were different at the Hall. For one thing there was far too much food. Vimes had not been born yesterday, or even the day before, and refrained from commenting.
    Willikins served Vimes and Lady Sybil. Strictly speaking it wasn’t his job while they were away from home, but strictly speaking most gentlemen’s gentlemen didn’t carry a set of brass knuckles in their well-cut jacket either.
    â€œAnd what did you boys do this morning?” said Sybil cheerfully, as the plates were emptied.
    â€œWe saw the stinky bone man!” said Young Sam. “He was like all beard, but stinky! And we found the smelly apple tree which is like poo!”
    Lady Sybil’s placid expression did not change. “And then you came down the roly-poly hill, didn’t you? And what about the ha-ha, the ho-ho and the he-he?”
    â€œYes, but there’s all cow poo! I treaded in it!” Young Sam waited for an adult response, and his mother said, “Well, you’ve got your new country boots, haven’t you? Treading in cow poo is what they’re for.”
    Sam Vimes watched his son’s face glow with impossible pleasure as his mother went on. “Your grandfather always told me that if I saw a big pile of muck in a field I should kick it around a bit so as to spread it evenly, because that way all the grass will grow properly.” She smiled at Vimes’s expression and said, “Well, it’s true, dear. A lot of farming is about manure.”
    â€œJust so long as he understands that he doesn’t start kicking up the gutters when he gets back to the city,” Vimes said. “Some of that stuff will kick back.”
    â€œHe should learn about the countryside. He should know where food comes from and how we get it. This is important, Sam!”
    â€œOf course, dear.”
    Lady Sybil gave her husband a look only a wife can give. “That was your put-upon-but-dutiful voice, Sam.”
    â€œYes, but I don’t see—”
    Sybil interrupted him. “Young Sam will own all this one day and I’d like him to have some idea about it all, just as I’d like you to relax and enjoy your holiday. I’m taking Young Sam over to Home Farm later on, to see the cows being milked, and to collect some eggs.” She stood up. “But first I’m going to take him down to the crypt, to see his ancestors.” She noted her husband’s look of panic and added, quickly, “It’s all right, Sam, they aren’t walking around; they are, in fact, in very expensive boxes. Why don’t you come too?”

S am Vimes was no stranger to death, and vice versa. It was the suicides that got him down. They were mostly hangings, because you would have to be extremely suicidal to jump into the River Ankh, not least because you would bounce several times before you broke through the crust. And they all had to be investigated, just in case it was a murder in disguise, * and whereas Mr. Trooper, the current city hangman, could drop someone into eternity so quickly and smoothly that they probably didn’t notice, too often Vimes had seen what amateurs managed to do.
    The Ramkin family crypt reminded him of the city morgue after hours. It was crowded; some coffins were stacked edgewise, as though they were on shelves in the mortuary, but, it was to be hoped, they didn’t slide out. Vimes watched warily as his wife carefully took their son from plaque to plaque reading out the names and explaining a little about every occupant, and he felt the cold, bottomless depths of time around him, somehow breathing from the walls. How could it feel for Young