Unseen Academicals

leaving. People in football strip were criss-crossing the city. The Watch couldn’t chase everyone. But, well, belting some bloke who then bled a lot and stopped breathing, well, that was tantamount to murder, and the Old Sam could develop quite a turn of speed in those circumstances.
    Andy shook a furious finger at Trev. ‘It’s a hard life in the Shove when you’re a dumb chuff with no mates.’
    ‘This ain’t the Shove!’
    ‘Better wake up, kid. It’s all Shove.’
    The Posse left at speed, although Jumbo turned for a moment to mouth ‘sorry’. They weren’t the only ones hurrying off. The street people were all for a free cabaret, but this one might have associated difficulties: for example the asking of dangerous metaphysical questions such as ‘Did you see anything?’ and similar. It was all very well for the Watch to say ‘the innocent have nothing to fear’, but what was that all about? Who cared about the innocent and their problems when the Watch were on their way?
    Trev knelt by the cooling body of the late Nutt.
    And now for the first time in a minute, it seemed to Trev, he started to breathe again. He had stopped when he had raged at Andy ’cos if you talked like that to Andy you were dead anyway, so why waste your breath?
    There were things you had to do, weren’t there? Weren’t you supposed to keep banging on the chest to, like, show the broken heart how to beat again? But he didn’t know how, and you didn’t need much smarts to know that it was not a good idea to try to learn with the Watch on the way. It would not give a good first impression.
    That was why, when two watchmen turned up at speed, Trev was walking unsteadily towards them with Nutt in his arms. He was relieved to see that in charge was Constable Haddock: at least he was one of the ones who asked questions first. Behind him, and eclipsing most of the scenery, was Troll officer Bluejohn, who could clear a whole street just by walking down the centre of it.
    ‘Can you help me get him to the Lady Sybil, Mister Haddock? He’s very heavy,’ said Trev.
    Constable Haddock pulled the sodden shirt aside, and made a sad little clicking sound. With experience comes familiarity.
    ‘Morgue’s closer, lad.’
    ‘No!’
    Haddock nodded. ‘You’re Dave Likely’s son, aren’t you?’
    ‘I don’t have to tell you!’
    ‘No, ’cos I’m right,’ said Constable Haddock evenly. ‘Okay, Trev. Bluejohn here will take this man, who I expect you have never seen before in your life, and we’ll both run to keep up. There was a decent thunderstorm the night before last. He might be lucky. And so might you.’
    ‘I never did it!’
    ‘ ’course not. And now…let’s see who’s fastest at running, shall we? The hospital first.’
    ‘I want to stay with him,’ said Trev, as Bluejohn’s huge hand gently cradled Nutt.
    ‘No, lad,’ said Haddock. ‘You stay with me.’

    It didn’t stop with Constable Haddock. It never did. Everyone called him Kipper, and his calm unspoken message that since we’re all in this together, why make it hard for one another often worked, but sooner or later you’d be handed over to a senior copper who manufactured hard, in a little room with another copper at the door. And this one had been working double shifts, by the look of her.
    ‘I’m Sergeant Angua, sir, and I hope you are not in trouble.’ She opened a notebook and smoothed down the page.
    ‘Shall we go through the motions? You told Constable Haddock that you saw a fight going on and when you got there all the big boys had run away and, amazingly, you found your workmate, Mister Nutts, bleeding to death. Well, I bet I can name all the big boys, every last one of them. I wonder why can’t you? And what, Trevor Likely, is this about?’ She flicked a black-and-white enamel token across the table, and by luck or judgement its pin stuck in the wood a few inches from Trev’s hand.

    The unofficial motto of the Lady Sybil Free Hospital was ‘Not everybody dies’. It was true that, subsequent to the founding of the Lady Sybil, the chances of death from at least some causes in the city were quite amazingly reduced. Its surgeons were even known to wash their hands before operating as well as after. But moving through its white corridors now was a figure who knew, from personal experience, that the unofficial motto was, in reality, entirely mistaken.
    Death stood by the well-scrubbed slab and looked down. M ISTER N UTT ? W ELL, THIS