Thud!

thought Angua, and headed for her clothes.
    “Well…of course…” she mumbled.
    “I meant wearing something else. Like—a dress?” Sally went on. “Come on . Every copper spends some time out of uniform. That’s how you know you’re off duty.”
    “But it’s pretty much a 24/8 job for us.” said Angua, “There’s always—”
    “You mean it is for him, because he likes it that way, and so you go along with it?” said the vampire, and that one got through all Angua’s defenses.
    “It’s my life! Why should I listen to advice from a vampire?”
    “Because you’re a werewolf,” said Sally. “Only a vampire would dare to give it, right? You don’t have to be at his heel all the time.”
    “Look, I’ve been through all this, understand? It’s a werewolf thing. We are what we are!”
    “I’m not. You don’t get the black ribbon just for signing the pledge, you know. And it doesn’t mean you stop craving blood. You just don’t do anything about it. At least you can go out at night and chase chickens.”
    There was a stony silence. Then Angua said: “You know about the chickens?”
    “Yes.”
    “I pay for them, you know.”
    “I’m sure you do.”
    “And it’s not as though it’s every night.”
    “I’m sure it isn’t. Look, do you know there are people out there who will volunteer to be a vampire’s…dinner companion? Providing it’s all done with style? And we are considered weird?” She sniffed. “By the way, what did you wash your hair in?”
    “Willard Brothers ‘Good Girl!’ Flea Shampoo,” said Angua. “It brings out the gloss,” she added defensively. “Look, I want to get this clear, right? Just because we spent hours wading around under the city, and, okay, maybe saved each other’s lives once or twice, it does not mean we’re friends, okay? We just happened to…be there at the same time!”
    “You do need some time off,” said Sally. “I was going to buy a drink for Tawneee anyway, to say thanks, and Cheery wants to tag along. How about it? We’ve been stood down for now. Time out for a little fun?”
    Angua struggled with a seething snake’s nest of emotions. Tawneee had been very kind, and far more helpful than you might expect from someone wearing six inches of heel and four square inches of clothing.
    “Come on ,” said Sally encouragingly. “I don’t know about you, but it’s going to take a bit of effort to get the taste of that mud out of my mouth.”
    “Oh, all right ! But this doesn’t mean we’re bonding!”
    “Fine. Fine.”
    “I’m not a bondage kind of person,” Angua added.
    “Yes, yes,” said Sally. “I can see that.”

V imes sat and stared at his notebook. He’d got “talking cube” written down and circled.
    Out of the corner of his ear, he could hear the sounds of the City Watch rising from below: the bustle in the yard of the Old Lemonade Factory, where the Specials were assembling again, just in case; the rattle of the hurry-up wagon; the general murmur of voices coming up through the floor…
    After some thinking, he wrote “old well” and circled that, too.
    He’d scrumped plums in the gardens of Empirical Crescent with all the other kids. Half the houses were empty, and no one cared much. Yes, there had been a well, but it had long been full up to the top with garbage, even then. Grass was growing on the top. They only found the bricks because they looked for them.
    So, let’s say that anything buried right at the bottom, where the dwarfs had headed, had been dumped, oh, more than fifty, sixty years ago…
    You seldom saw a dwarf in Ankh-Morpork even forty years ago, and they weren’t anything like rich or powerful enough to own a cube. They were hard workers, seeking—just possibly—a better life. So, what human would throw away a talking box worth a mountain of gold? He’d have to be bloody mad—
    Vimes sat rigidly, staring at the scrawls on the page. In the distance, Detritus was barking a command at someone.
    He felt like a man crossing a river on stepping-stones. He was nearly halfway across, but the next stone was just a bit too far and could only be reached with serious groinal stress. Nevertheless, his foot was waving in the air, and it was that or a soaking…
    He wrote: “Rascal.” Then he circled the word several times, the pencil biting into the cheap paper.
    Rascal must have been to Koom Valley. Let’s say he found a cube there, who knows how. Just lying there? Anyway, he brings it