Snuff

Remember a little boy? Little boy open book? And he see evil goblin, and I see nasty little boy! Good for us, little boy, that we were both right!’
    Vimes watched them march away, speeding up until they reached the undergrowth at the edge of the dockyard, where they disappeared, and for a moment it occurred to Vimes that even if he rushed forward and fished around for any trace of goblin he would not find one. He was bewildered. This didn’t matter very much; bewilderment was often a copper’s lot. His job was to make sense of the world, and there were times when he wished that the world would meet him halfway.
    ‘Are you feeling all right, commander?’
    Vimes turned and looked at the serious face of Lieutenant Perdix. ‘Well, I’m not certain when I last slept properly, but at least I can stay standing up! And I have all the names and descriptions.’ Three names, and one, oh, what a name that was, that is if you trusted the word of someone happy to be called Captain Murderer. Well, the man was in his fifties, not a good age to have to run and hide. No, Murderer was not going to be a problem. Nor was Jefferson, idiot firebrand though he was. What Jefferson had suspected, Captain Murderer knew . But Vimes, on the other hand, hadn’t demanded the chance to take a crack at the Queen ’s first mate, admittedly an unpleasant-looking cove with a chin like a butcher’s boot. He was swaggering towards them now, with the apprehensive Captain Murderer fussing along behind him.
    Vimes strolled up to the blacksmith. ‘Come on, sir, Murderer will pay you whatever it takes to keep the lieutenant happy, and keep his own boat. Chalk it up to experience, eh?’
    ‘There’s still that bloody first mate,’ said the blacksmith. ‘The rest of the crew were civil enough but he’s a bullying bastard!’
    ‘Well,’ said Vimes, ‘here he is and so are you. It’s man to man, and I’ll stay here to see fair play. It’s an interesting day here. We’re trying a different kind of law, one that’s quick and doesn’t have to trouble any lawyers. So go on, he knows what you want, and so do you, Mister Jefferson.’
    Other crewmen were congregating at this end of the beach. Vimes looked from face to face, all showing the working man’s intuition that a good bit of healthy violence might cheerfully be expected, and read the unspoken language. The first mate did look like a man who made a lot of use of his fists and his temper, and so, Vimes thought, there would probably be many among the crew who would like to see him given a little lesson – or even a great big one. He beckoned both the men towards him.
    ‘Gentlemen, this is a grudge match; you both know the score. If I see a knife may the gods help him who holds it. There is to be no murder here, saving you of course, captain, and in front of you all I give my word that I’ll stop the fight when I deem that one man has definitely had enough. Gentlemen, over to you.’ And with this he stood back smartly.
    Neither man moved, but Jefferson said, ‘Do you know the Marquis of Fantailer Rules devised for the proper conduct for a bout of fisticuffs?’
    The first mate’s smile was evil. He said, ‘Yus, I do!’
    Vimes didn’t see, not actually see with his own eyes, what happened next, surely no one could, but it was agreed later that Jefferson had spun around in a blur and laid the sailor flat. The sound of his heavy body thumping down on the sand was all that broke the silence.
    After one second, Jefferson, massaging some blood back into his fist, looked down at the fallen giant and said, ‘I don’t.’ He turned and looked at Vimes. ‘You know? He deliberately pissed on the goblins in the hold. Bastard.’
    Vimes tensed in case the fallen man had chums without a sense of humour, but in fact there was laughter. After all, a big man had gone down heavy right enough, bang to rights, and that was a definite result in anybody’s money. ‘Well done, Mister Jefferson, a fair fight if ever I saw one. Perhaps these gentlemen will take the first mate back to his ship for a lie-down.’
    Vimes delivered this as an instruction, which was instantly obeyed as one, but he added, ‘If that’s all right by you, Captain Murderer? Good. And now I think that you and I’ll go, in an entirely friendly way, along with the lieutenant here, to the Quirm Watch headquarters, where there will be a little matter of affidavits to sign.’
    ‘I expect you will want to be leaving with some