Snuff

helping of haddock kedgeree and ate all four rashers of bacon on his plate. Sybil tut-tutted about this, and Vimes pointed out that he was on holiday, after all, and on holiday you did not do the things you did on other days, causing Sybil, with forensic accuracy, to point out that this should therefore include police work, should it not, but Vimes was ready, and said that of course he understood this, which was why he was going to take Young Sam for a walk down to the centre of the village to put his suspicions in the hands of the local policeman. Sybil said, ‘All right, then,’ in deliberate tones of disbelief, and he was to be sure to take Willikins with him.
    This was another aspect of his wife that puzzled Vimes to the core. In the same way that Sybil thought that Nobby Nobbs, although a rough diamond, was a good watchman, she thought that Vimes was safer in the company of a man who never moved abroad without the weaponry of the street about his person, and who had once opened a beer bottle with somebody else’s teeth. This was true, but in some ways very disconcerting.
    He heard the doorbell ring, heard the footman open the front door, heard a muffled conversation followed by somebody walking on the gravel path round to the back of the Hall. It wasn’t important, it was just ambience, and the sound of a footman coming into the room and whispering to Sybil fell into the same category.
    He heard her say, ‘What? Oh well, I suppose you’d better show him in,’ then snapped to attention when she addressed him. ‘It’s the local policeman. Can you see him in the study? Policemen never wipe their feet properly, especially you, Sam.’
    Vimes hadn’t seen the study yet. The Hall seemed never to run out of rooms. By dint of being pointed the way by a swivelling maid, he arrived in the study a few seconds before the local copper was shown in by a footman, who was making a face like a man having to handle a dead rat. At least, it was presumably the local copper; he looked like the local copper’s son. Seventeen years old, Vimes reckoned, and he smelled of pigs. He stood where the footman had deposited him, and stared.
    After a while Vimes said, ‘Can I help you, officer?’
    The young man blinked. ‘Er, am I addressing Sir Samuel Vimes?’
    ‘Who are you?’
    This query appeared to take the young man by surprise, and after a while Vimes took pity on him and said, ‘Look, son, the correct drill is to say who you are and then ask me if I am me, so to speak. After all, I don’t know who you are. You’re not wearing a uniform I recognize, you have shown me no warrant card or badge and you don’t have a helmet. I assume, nevertheless, and for the purposes of concluding this interview before lunchtime, that you are the chief constable in this vicinity? What’s your name?’
    ‘Er, Upshot, sir, Feeney Upshot … er, Chief Constable Upshot?’
    Vimes felt ashamed of himself, but this kid was representing himself as a police officer and even Nobby Nobbs would have laughed.
    Aloud, he said, ‘Well, Chief Constable Upshot, I am Sir Samuel Vimes, amongst other things, and I was thinking only just now that I should talk to you.’
    ‘Er, that’s good, sir, because I was thinking only just now that it was about time I should arrest you on suspicion of causing the death of Jethro Jefferson, the smith.’
    Vimes’s expression did not change. So, what do I do now? Nothing , that’s what. You have the right to remain silent, I’ve said that to hundreds of people, knowing it for the rubbish that it is, and I’m absolutely certain of one other thing, that I certainly haven’t laid anything more than an educational hand on that damned blacksmith and therefore it’s going to be very interesting to find out why this little twerp thinks he can feel my collar for doing so.
    A copper should always be willing to learn, and Vimes had learned from Lord Vetinari that you should never react to any comment or situation until you had decided exactly what you were going to do. This had the dual attraction of preventing you from saying or doing the wrong thing while at the same time making other people extremely nervous.
    ‘Sorry about that, sir, but it took me an hour to get the pigs out and make the lock-up comfortable, sir, it still smells a bit of disinfectant, sir, and pig, if it comes to that, but I whitewashed the walls and there’s a chair and a bed you can curl up on. Oh, and so you don’t get bored I found the