Snuff

expressive on the subject, sir.”
    Vimes nodded to the old goblin. “I’ll find out who killed your wife, sir, and I’ll bring them to justice.” He paused on cue as another chorus of “Just ice!” echoed around the caves. “But first I must, for police reasons, inspect the rest of this…establishment, if you have no objection.”
    The goblin looked at him bright-eyed. “And if I object, Mr. Po-leess-maan?”
    Vimes matched his stare. “An interesting question,” he said “and if you threatened us with violence I would leave. Indeed, if you forbade me to search then I would leave, and, sir, the worst part is that I would not come back. Sir, I respectfully ask that I may in the pursuit of my inquiries be shown around the rest of these premises.”
    Was that a smile on the old goblin’s face? “Of course, Mr. Po-leess-maan.”
    Behind the old goblin the rest of the crowd began to move away, presumably to either make pots or fill them. Rain on Hard Ground, who, it had to be assumed, because nothing had been said to the contrary, was either a chieftain (as Vimes would understand it) or simply a goblin tasked with talking to stupid humans, said, “You are seeking the blacksmith? He visits us sometimes. There is iron down here, not much, but he finds it useful. Of course it is no good for pots, but we trade it for food. I don’t think I have seen him for several days. However, by all means look for him without hindrance. The dark is in you. I would not dare to stand in your way, Mr. Po-leess-maan. Such as it is, this place is yours.”
    With that the old goblin beckoned to some juvenile goblins to pick up all that was left of his wife and drifted away toward another cave mouth.
    â€œHave you seen a lot of dead bodies, commander?” said Feeney, in a voice that almost managed not to shake.
    â€œOh yes, lad, and some of them I helped to make.”
    â€œYou’ve killed people?”
    Vimes looked at the ceiling so as not to have to look at Feeney’s face. “I like to think I did my best not to,” he said, “and on the whole I’ve been good at that, but sooner or later there’s always going to be somebody who is determined to finish you off and you end up having to take him down the wrong way because he’s just too damn stupid to surrender. It doesn’t get any better, and I’ve never seen a corpse that looked good.”
    The funeral group had disappeared into the other cave now, and the two policemen were left alone, but feeling, however, that around them people were going about their business.
    The old goblin had just stood there and mentioned that the woman was his wife almost as an afterthought. He hadn’t even raised his voice! Vimes couldn’t have stood there like that if it had been Sybil’s body on the ground in front of him, and as sure as hell he would not be polite to any goblins who were in front of him either. How can you get like that? How can life so beat you down?
    The Street was always with you, just as Willikins had said. And Vimes remembered the ladies who scrubbed. Cockbill Street got scrubbed so often that it was surprising it wasn’t now at a lower level than the ground around it. The doorstep was scrubbed, and then whitened; the red tiles on the floor inside were scrubbed and then polished with red lead; and the black cooking stove was blackened even further by being rubbed ferociously with black lead. Women in those days had elbows that moved like pistons. And it was all about survival, and survival was all about pride. You didn’t have much control over your life but by Jimmy you could keep it clean and show the world you were poor but respectable. That was the dread: the dread of falling back, losing standards, becoming no better than those people who bred and fought and stole in that ferocious turmoil of a rookery known as the Shades.
    The goblins had succumbed, had they? Going through the motions now, while the world gently expelled them, they were giving up, letting go…but murder was murder in any jurisdiction or none at all. He tied his thoughts in a knot under his chin, snatched a couple of smouldering torches and said, “Come on, chief constable, let’s go and fight crime.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Feeney, “but can I ask you another question?”
    â€œOf course,” said Vimes, heading toward a tunnel that was