Snuff

pleased as punch. Feeney could be said to look as pleased as Punch, Judy, the dog Toby, the crocodile and, above all, the policeman, all rolled in together. Vimes raised his eyebrows in new interrogation, and Feeney said, “I believe him, chief. He hasn’t got it in him, I swear. The best he could manage would be knocking over an old lady for her purse, and even then she’d probably have to be blind too.”
    â€œThere, you see!” said Flutter triumphantly. “I’m not really a bad person!”
    â€œNo,” said Vimes, “you’re a veritable choirboy, Mr. Flutter, I can see that, and I’m rather religious too, and I like chapter and verse, but are you willing to swear that the individual known as Stratford knifed a goblin girl to death on Hangman’s Hill in the grounds of Ramkin Hall, three nights ago?”
    Flutter raised a finger. “Can I say that I told him to stop, and he laughed, and I didn’t know it was a girl neither—I mean, how can you tell?”
    Vimes’s face was deadpan. “Tell me, Ted, what would you have done if you had known? I’m intrigued.”
    Flutter looked down at his feet. “Well, I, well, well, I mean…not a girl, I mean…well, not a girl…I mean, that’s not right, know what I mean?”
    And you can find someone like this dangerous clown in nearly every neighborhood, Vimes thought. “Clearly chivalry is not dead, Mr. Flutter. Okay, Feeney, let’s carry on. Mr. Flutter, why were you on Hangman’s Hill on the aforesaid night?”
    â€œWe were just having a walk,” said Flutter.
    Vimes’s face was again deadpan, so deadpan as to be mortified. “Of course you were, Mr. Flutter. Silly of me to ask the question, really. Constable Upshot, I can see Willikins over there having a smoke.” He pushed at the open door and dragged Flutter inside. “Does this building have a cellar?”
    Flutter was one step away from a toilet break, but nevertheless, being the kind of fool to dig himself in deeper, managed to sneer, “There might be. So what?”
    â€œMr. Flutter, I have already told you that I’m a religious man, and since you would test the patience of a saint I need to spend a moment in quiet contemplation, understand? I’m sure you know that there’s always an easy way, and then again, there’s always the hard way. Currently, this is the easy way, but the hard way is also quite easy, in a manner of speaking. Before talking to you again I want to be alone with my thoughts. And it occurs to me, Mr. Flutter, that you might have some thoughts about, as it were, legging it, and so my colleague, Chief Constable Upshot, will guard the door and I shall send in my batman, Mr. Willikins, to keep you company.”
    Before Vimes was even able to tap on the window, the door opened and Willikins, immaculate as ever, stepped into the grubby room, all smart and crisp with shiny shoes and a hint of pomade on his hair. The three men then watched Vimes heave at a likely ring on the floor, which pulled back to reveal the trap door to a dark cellar and a ladder going down.
    Vimes said, “Constable Upshot, I need a little time to think in the darkness. I won’t be long.” He went down the ladder and pulled the trap door closed behind him.
    The darkness said, “Ah, commander, at long last. I suspect that you’re here to take a witness statement.”
    This is wrong, Vimes told himself. How can you take testimony from a demon, especially when it’s one of no fixed abode? But on the other hand, who needs a witness statement if you’ve got a confession?
    Up above, Ted Flutter’s eyes rolled this way and that as he analyzed the situation. Let’s see: we have one young twit who is playing at being a copper, and a snooty butler type, all pink and shiny. I reckon Mrs. Flutter’s little boy is out of here. At this point, at this very point, Willikins, without looking at Flutter, reached into his jacket and there was a slap as he laid down on the table in front of him a steel comb. It gleamed. And it gleamed even stronger in Flutter’s imagination. He took one look at Willikins’ expression, and Mrs. Flutter’s little boy decided he would sit very still until that nice Commander Vimes came back. Out of another pocket Willikins produced the sharpest-looking knife Flutter had ever seen and, without paying any attention