Snuff

if you like, by piracy. You should like that, Sam! Good honest manual labour! And look what it led to! The trouble with you, Sam Vimes, is that you’re determined to be your very own class enemy.’
    ‘Is there something wrong, commander?’ said Feeney.
    ‘Everything,’ said Vimes. ‘For one thing, no policeman swears allegiance to the civil power, he swears allegiance to the law. Oh, politicians can change the law, and if the copper doesn’t like it then he can quit, but while he is in the job it’s up to him to act in accordance with the law as laid down.’ He leaned his back against the stone wall. ‘You do not swear to obey magistrates! I’d like to see what it was that you signed—’ Vimes stopped talking because the little metal plate in the lock-up door slid open to reveal Feeney’s mother, looking very nervous.
    ‘I’ve made Bang Suck Duck, Feeney, with swede and chips, and there’s enough for the duke as well, if he would be so condescending as to accept it?’
    Vimes leaned forward and whispered, ‘Does she know you’ve arrested me?’
    Feeney shuddered. ‘No, and, sir, please, please don’t tell her, because I think she’d never let me into the house ever again.’
    Vimes walked over to the door and said to the slot, ‘I shall be honoured by your hospitality, Mistress Upshot.’
    There was a nervous giggle from the other side of the slot, and Feeney’s mother managed to say, ‘I’m sorry to say we have no silver plates, your highness!’
    At home Vimes and Sybil ate off serviceable earthenware, cheap, practical and easy to keep clean. He said aloud, ‘I’m sorry you don’t have any silver plates, too, Mistress Upshot, and I’ll have a set sent to you directly.’
    There was something like a scuffle from the other side of the slot, at the same time as Feeney said, ‘I beg your pardon? Have you gone mad, sir?’
    Well, that would help, Vimes thought. ‘We’ve got hundreds of damn silver plates up at the Hall, my lad. Bloody useless, they make the food cold and they turn black as soon as your back is turned. We appear to be overrun with spoons, too. I’ll see what we’ve got.’
    ‘You can’t do that, sir! She gets scared of having valuables in the house!’
    ‘Do you have much theft hereabouts, chief constable?’ said Vimes, emphasizing the last two words.
    Feeney opened the door of the lock-up and picked up his mother, who had apparently been stunned by the possibility of owning silver plates, brushed her down and said over her shoulder, ‘No, sir, the reason being no one has anything to steal. My mum always told me money can’t buy you happiness, sir.’
    Yes, Vimes thought, so did my ma, but she was glad enough when I gave her my first wages, because it meant we could have a meal with meat in it, even if we didn’t know what kind of meat it was. That’s happiness, isn’t it? Blimey, the lies we tell ourselves …
    When a blushing Mistress Upshot had gone to fetch the meal, Vimes said, ‘Between ourselves, chief constable, do you believe that I’m guilty of murder?’
    ‘No, sir!’ said Feeney instantly.
    ‘You said that very quickly, young man. Are you going to say that it’s copper’s instinct? Because I get the impression you ain’t been a copper long and haven’t had much to do. I’m no expert, but I don’t reckon pigs try lying to you very much either.’
    Feeney took a deep breath. ‘Well, sir,’ he said calmly, ‘my granddad was a wily old bird and he could read people like books. He used to walk me around the area introducing me to people, sir, and then as they strolled along he’d tell me their stories, like the one about the man who’d been caught in flagrante delicto with a common barnyard fowl …’
    Vimes listened open-mouthed as the pink, well-scrubbed face talked about the gentle, fragrant landscape as if it was populated by devils from the most invidious pit. He unrolled a crime sheet that badly needed the laundry: no major murders, just nastiness, silliness and all the crimes of human ignorance and stupidity. Of course, where there were people there was crime. It just seemed out of place in the slow world of big spaces and singing birds. And yet he’d smelled it as soon as he was here and now he was in the middle of it.
    ‘You get a tingle,’ said Feeney. ‘That’s what my dad told me. He said watch, listen and keep your eye on every man. There never was a good policeman who didn’t have a slice of villain somewhere in him,