Snuff

to build and cost nothing, but the city was full of people who would have been overjoyed to live there.
    ‘Sorry about this,’ said Billy. ‘I can’t say that Harry is a big payer, but he turns a blind eye to us snaffling the occasional bits and pieces if we don’t get cheeky about it.’
    ‘But you’ve even got a stove pipe!’ said Angua, astonished.
    Billy looked down. ‘Leaks a bit; waiting for me to solder a few patches on, that’s all. Wait here, I’ll just make sure she’s ready for you. I know she’ll be ready for the brandy.’
    There was a polite knock on the door which turned out to be courtesy of Captain Carrot who was on his way back with the brandy. He carefully opened the battered and many-times-painted outside door and let in some light. Then he looked around and said, ‘ Very cosy!’
    Angua tapped her foot. ‘Look, he’s even jigsawed broken bits of roof tile together to make a decent floor cover. There’s some thoughtful construction going on here.’ She lowered her voice and whispered, ‘And he’s a goblin. It’s not what I’d expected—’
    ‘Got bloody good hearing as well, miss,’ said Billy, re-entering the room. ‘Amazing, innit, what tricks us goblins can learn. Cor, you’d almost think we were people!’ He pointed towards a hanging of some sort of felt that obscured the other end of the room. ‘Got the brandy wine? Off we go, then. Hold the bottle out in front of you, that usually does the trick. Officers, the lady ain’t my granny as such, she’s my great-granny, but that was too much of a mouthful for me when I was a little kid, so Granny she became. Let me do the talking, ’cos unless you are a bloody genius, you won’t understand a blind word she says! Come on in, quickly, I’ve got to go and make her lunch in half an hour, and, like I said, you’ve probably got until the drink runs out.’
    ‘I can’t see a thing,’ said Carrot, as the felt sombrely swung back behind them, and Angua said, carefully, ‘I can. Would you be so good as to introduce us to your great-grandmother, Billy?’
    Carrot still fought for any kind of vision but heard what he thought was the goblin boy speaking, although it sounded as if he was chewing gravel at the same time. Then, after a sense of movement in the darkness, another voice, cracking like ice, answered him. Then Billy quite clearly said, ‘Regret of the Falling Leaf welcomes you, watchmen, and bids you give her the bloody brandy right now.’
    Carrot held the bottle out in the direction of Billy’s voice, and it was swiftly passed on to the shape beginning to form in front of him as sight trickled back. The shape apparently said, according to Billy , ‘Why you come to me, po-leess-man? Why you need help from dying lady? What is unggue to you, Mister Po-leess-man? Unggue is ours, ours! No good for you here, big Mister Po-leess-man!’
    ‘What is unggue, madam?’ said Carrot.
    ‘No religion, no ringing bellsey, no knees all bendey, no chorus, no hallelujah, no by your leave, just unggue, pure unggue! Just unggue, who come when need. Little unggue! When gods wash hands and turn away there is unggue who roll up the sleeves! Unggue strikes in the dark. If unggue don’t come himself, he send. Unggue is everywhere!’
    Carrot cleared his throat. ‘Regret of the Falling Leaf, we have a man, a policeman, a good man, who is dying of unggue. We don’t understand; please help us understand. In his hand he is holding an unggue pot.’
    The screech must have echoed around the works; it certainly made the little shack rock. ‘Unggue thief! Pot stealer! Not fit to live!’ Billy translated with every sign of embarrassment. The old goblin woman tried to stand up and sank back into her cushions, muttering.
    Angua tried: ‘You are wrong, old lady. This pot came to him by chance. He found it, it is the pot called soul of tears .’
    Regret of the Falling Leaf had filled the world with noise. Now she appeared to empty it with silence. She said, bitterly and, come to that, curiously, considering the fact that her great-grandson had said she didn’t know much Ankh-Morporkian, ‘Found in goblin cave, oh yes! Found on end of shovel, oh yes! Bad cess to him!’
    ‘No!’ Suddenly Carrot was face to face with the goblin woman. ‘It came to him by accident, like a curse. He never wanted it and he didn’t know what it was. He found it in a cigar.’
    There was a pause in which, presumably, the old woman was doing some complex