Night Watch tds-27 Page 12

  Vimes could hear shocked whispering behind him. This was not how things were supposed to go these days.

  “Sarge,” said Lance-Constable Vimes.

  “Yep?”

  “Have you really got the eye of a mass murderer?”

  “In the pocket of my other suit, yes.”

  “Hah.” Sam was quiet for a while, and when he spoke again he seemed to have something new on his mind.

  “Er, sarge?”

  “Yes, lad?”

  “What's a tuppenny upright, sarge?”

  “It's a kind of jam doughnut, lad. Did your mum ever make 'em?”

  “Yes, sarge. Sarge?”

  “Yes, lad?”

  “I think it probably means something else as well, sarge,” said Sam, sniggering. “Something a bit…rude—”

  “The whole of life is a learning process, lance-constable.”

  They got the wagon back to the yard ten minutes later, and by that time Vimes knew that a new rumour was fanning out across the city. Young Sam had already whispered things to the other officers as the curfew-breakers were dropped off, and nobody gossips like a copper. They didn't like the Unmentionables. Like petty criminals everywhere, the watchmen prided themselves that there were some depths to which they would not sink. There had to be some things below you, even if it was only mudworms.

  Rosie Palm bolted the door of her flat, leaned on it and stared at Sandra.

  “What is he?” said Sandra, dumping her workbasket on the table. It clanked within. “Is he on our side?”

  “You heard the lads!” snapped Rosie. “No bribes now! And then he drags us off to Swing's bastards and then he won't hand us over! I could kill him! I rescued him from the gutter, got Mossy to patch him up and suddenly he's playing big silly games!”

  “Yes, what is a tuppenny upright?” said Sandra brightly.

  Miss Palm paused. She quite enjoyed Sandra's company and the extra rent certainly came in handy, but there were times she wondered whether a) she should have a talk with the girl or b) she was being very gently wound up. She suspected the latter, since Sandra was taking more money than her most of the time. It was getting embarrassing.

  “It's a kind of jam doughnut,” she said. “Now, you'd better go and hide the—”

  Someone knocked on the door behind her. She motioned Sandra through the bead curtain, took a moment to pull herself together, and opened the door a fraction.

  There was a very small old man standing in the hall.

  Everything about him sloped hopelessly downwards. His grey moustache could have been stolen from a walrus, or a bloodhound that had just been given some very bad news. His shoulders sagged listlessly. Even parts of his face seemed to be losing the battle with gravity.

  He held his cap in his hands and was twisting it nervously.

  “Yes?” said Rosie.

  “Er, it said ‘seamstress’ on the sign,” the old man mumbled. “An', well, since my ol' woman died, you know, what with one thing an' another, never bin any good at doing it for meself—”

  He gave Rosie a look of sheer, helpless embarrassment.

  She glanced down at the sack by his feet, and picked it up. It was full of very clean, but very worn, socks. Every single one had holes in the heel and toe.

  “Sandra,” she said, “I think this one's for you…”

  It was so very early in the morning that “late at night” wasn't quite over. White mist hung everywhere in the streets, and deposited droplets like tiny pearls on Vimes's shirt as he prepared to break the law.

  If you stood on the roof of the privy behind the Watch House and steadied yourself on the drainpipe, one of the upstairs windows would bounce open if you hit it with the palm of your hand in exactly the right place.

  It was a useful bit of information, and Vimes wondered if he should pass it on to young Sam. Every honest copper ought to know how to break into his own nick.

  Tilden had limped home long ago, but Vimes did a quick sweep of his office and it was with great satisfaction that he did not see what he hadn't expected to be there. Down below, a few of the more conscientious officers were signing off before heading home. He waited in the shadows until the door had banged shut for the last time and there were no footsteps for several minutes. Then he made his way down the stairs and into the locker room.

  He had been issued with a key to his own locker, but still oiled the hinge from a small bottle before he opened it. He had not in fact put anything in there yet but, behold, there was a rumpled sack on the floor. He lifted it up…

  Well done, lads.

  Inside was Captain Tilden's silver inkwell.

  Vimes stood up, and looked around at the lockers, with their ancient carved initials and occasional knife marks on the doors. He pulled from his pocket the little black cloth roll he'd taken from the evidence locker earlier. A selection of lock picks glinted in the grey light. Vimes wasn't a genius with the hooks and rakes, but the cheap and worn door locks were hardly a major challenge.

  Really, it was just a matter of choosing.

  And afterwards he walked back through the mists.

  He was horrified to find he was feeling good again. It was a betrayal of Sybil and the future Watch and even of His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, who had to think about the politics of distant countries and manpower requirements and how to raise that damn boat that River Division kept sinking. And, yes, he wanted to go back, or forwards or across or whatever. He really did. He wanted to go home so much he could taste it. Of course he did. But he couldn't, not yet, and here he was and as Dr Lawn said, you did the job. And currently the job involved survival on the street in the great game of Silly Buggers, and Vimes knew all about that game, oh yes. And there was a thrill in it. It was the nature of the beast.

  And thus he was walking along, lost in thought, when the men jumped him from the mouth of a shadowy alley.

  The first one got a foot in the stomach, because the beast does not fight fair. Vimes stepped aside and grabbed the other one. He felt the knife skitter along his breastplate as he lowered his head and tugged the man hard into the helmet.

  The man folded up quite neatly on the cobbles.

  Vimes spun around to the first man, who was bent almost double, and wheezing, but had nevertheless kept hold of his knife, which he waved around in front of him like some kind of talisman. The point made erratic figures-of-eight in the air.

  “Drop it,” said Vimes. “I won't ask again.”

  He sighed, and pulled an object out of his back pocket. It was black and tapered and made of leather filled with lead shot. He'd banned them in the modern Watch but he knew some officers had acquired them, and if he judged the man to be sensible then he didn't know they'd got them. Sometimes an argument had to be ended quickly, and there were worse alternatives.

  He brought the blackjack down on the man's arm, with a certain amount of care. There was a whimper and the knife bounced off the cobbles.

  “We'll leave your chum to sleep it off,” he said. “But you are coming to see the doctor, Henry. Are you coming quietly?”

  A few minutes later Dr Lawn opened his back door and Vimes brushed past, the body over his shoulders.

  “You minister to all sorts, right?” said Vimes.

  “Within reason, but—”

  “This one's an Unmentionable,” said Vimes. “Tried to kill me. Needs some medicine.”

  “Why's he unconscious?” said the doctor. He was wearing a huge rubber apron, and rubber boots.

  “Didn't want to take his medicine.”

  Lawn sighed, and with a hand that held a mop he waved Vimes towards an inner door. “Bring him right into the surgery,” he said. “I'm afraid I'm cleaning up after Mr Salciferous in the waiting room.”

  “Why, what did he do?”

  “He burst.”

  Vimes, his natural inquisitiveness suddenly curbed, carried the body into Lawn's inner sanctum. It looked little different from when Vimes had last seen it, but then he'd barely been capable
of taking in details. There was the table, and a workbench, and all along one wall were racks of bottles. No two bottles were the same size. In one or two of them, things floated.

  On another wall were the instruments.

  “When I die,” said Lawn, inspecting the patient, “I'm going to instruct them to put a bell on my tombstone, just so's I can have the pleasure of not getting up when people ring. Put him down, please. Looks like concussion.”

  “That was me hitting him,” said Vimes helpfully.

  “You broke his arm too?”

  “That's right.”

  “You made a very neat job of it. Easy to set it and plaster him up. Is there something wrong?”

  Vimes was still staring at the instruments. “You use all these?” he said.

  “Yes. Some of them are experimental, though,” said Lawn, busying himself at his work table.

  “Well, I'd hate you to use this on me,” said Vimes, picking a strange instrument like a couple of paddles tied with string. Lawn sighed.

  “Sergeant, there are no circumstances where the things you're holding could possibly be used on you,” he said, his hands working busily. “They are…of a feminine nature.”

  “For the seamstresses?” said Vimes, putting the pliers down in a hurry.

  “Those things? No, the ladies of the night take pride these days in never requiring that sort of thing. My work with them is more of, shall we say, a preventative nature.”

  “Teaching them to use thimbles, that sort of thing?” said Vimes.

  “Yes, it's amazing how far you can push a metaphor, isn't it…”

  Vimes prodded the paddles again. They were quite alarming.

  “You're married, sergeant?” said Lawn. “Was Rosie right?”

  “Er…yes. My wife is, er, elsewhere, though.” He picked the things up and dropped them hastily again, with a clatter.

  “Well, it's just as well to be aware that giving birth isn't like shelling peas,” said the doctor.

  “I should bloody well hope not!”

  “Although I have to say the midwives seldom refer anything to me. They say men shouldn't fish around where they don't belong. We might as well be living in caves.”

  Lawn looked down at his patient. “In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?”

  Vimes investigated the moneybag on the man's belt.

  “Will six dollars do it?” he said.

  “Why would the Unmentionables attack you, sergeant? You're a policeman.”

  “I am, but they aren't. Don't you know about them?”

  “I've patched up a few of their guests, yes,” said Lawn, and Vimes noted the caution. It didn't pay to know too much in this town. “People with curious dislocations, hot wax burns…that sort of thing—”

  “Well, I had a little brush with Captain Swing last night,” Vimes said, “and he was as polite as hell to me about it, but I'd bet my boots he knows that this lad and his friend came after me. That's his style. He probably wanted to see what I'd do.”

  “He's not the only one interested in you,” said Lawn. “I got a message that Rosie Palm wants to see you. Well, I assume she meant you. ‘That ungrateful bastard’ was the actual term she used.”

  “I think I owe her some money,” said Vimes, “but I've no idea how much.”

  “Don't ask me,” said Lawn, smoothing the plaster with his hand. “She generally names her price up front.”

  “I mean the finder's fee, or whatever it was!”

  “Yes, I know. Can't help you there, I'm afraid,” said Lawn.

  Vimes watched him working for a while, and said, “Know anything about Miss Battye?”

  “The seamstress? She hasn't been here long.”

  “And she's really a seamstress?”

  “For the sake of precision,” said Dr Lawn, “let us say she's a needlewoman. Apparently she heard there was a lot of work for seamstresses in the big city and had one or two amusing misunderstandings before someone told her exactly what was meant. One of them involved me removing a crochet hook from a man's ear last week. Now she just hangs out with the rest of the girls.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she's making a fortune, that's why,” said the doctor. “Hasn't it ever occurred to you, sergeant, that sometimes people go to a massage parlour for a real massage, for example? There's ladies all over this city with discreet signs up that say things like ‘Trousers repaired while you wait’ and a small but significant number of men make the same mistake as Sandra. There's lots of men work here in the city and leave their wives back home and sometimes, you know, a man feels these…urges. Like, for a sock without holes and a shirt with more than one button. The ladies pass on the work. Apparently it's quite hard to find a really good needlewoman in this city. They don't like being confused with, er, seamstresses.”

  “I just wondered why she hangs around street corners after curfew with a big sewing basket…” said Vimes.

  Lawn shrugged. “Can't help you there. Right, I've finished with this gentleman. It'd be helpful if he lies still for a while.” He indicated the racks of bottles behind him. “About how long will you want him to lie still for?”

  “You can do that?”

  “Oh, yes. It's not accepted Ankh-Morpork medical practice, but since Anhk-Morpork medical practice would consist of hitting him on the head with a mallet he's probably getting the best of the deal.”

  “No, I meant that you doctors aren't supposed to hurt people, are you?”

  “Only in the course of normal incompetence. But I don't mind sending him to sleepy land for another twenty minutes. Of course, if you want to wham him with the mallet I can't stop you. The last guest of Swing I treated had several fingers pointing entirely the wrong way. So if you'd like to give him a few wallops for good luck I could point out some quite sensitive areas—”

  “No thanks. I'll just haul him out the back way and drop him in an alley.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. Then…I'll sign my name on his damn plaster cast. So he sees it when he wakes up. In bloody big letters so it won't rub off.”

  “Now that's what I call a sensitive area,” said Lawn. “You're an interesting man, sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.”

  “I've never been interested in needlework,” said Vimes, hoisting the man on his shoulder. “But what sort of things would a needlewoman have in her workbasket, do you think?”

  “Oh, I don't know. Needles, thread, scissors, wool…that kind of thing,” said Mossy Lawn.

  “Not very heavy things, then?” said Vimes.

  “Not really. Why d'you ask?”

  “Oh, no reason,” said Vimes, making a small mental note. “Just a thought. I'll go and drop off our friend here while I've still got some mist to lurk in.”

  “Fine. I'll have breakfast on when you get back. It's liver. Calf's.”

  The Beast remembers. This time, Vimes slept soundly.

  He had always found it easier to sleep during the day. Twenty-five years on nights had ground their nocturnal groove in his brain. Darkness was easier, somehow. He knew how to stand still, a talent that few possess, and how to merge into the shadows. How to guard, in fact, and see without being seen.

  He remembered Findthee Swing. A lot of it was history. The revolt would have happened with Swing or without him but he was, as it were, the tip of the boil.

  He'd been trained at the Assassins' School and should never have been allowed to join the Watch. He had too much brain to be a copper. At least, too much of the wrong kind of brain. But Swing had impressed Winder with his theories, had been let in as a sergeant and then was promoted to captain immediately. Vimes had never known why; it was probably because the officers were offended at seeing such a fine genn'lman pounding the streets with the rest of the oiks. Besides, he had a weak chest, or something.

  Vimes wasn't against intellect. Anyone with enough savvy to let go of a doorknob could be a street monster in th
e old days, but to make it above sergeant you needed a grab-bag of guile, cunning and street wisdom that could pass for “intelligence” in a poor light.

  Swing, though, started in the wrong place. He didn't look around, and watch and learn, and then say, “This is how people are, how do we deal with it?” No, he sat and thought: “This is how the people ought to be, how do we change them?” And that was a good enough thought for a priest but not for a copper, because Swing's patient, pedantic way of operating had turned policing on its head.

  There had been that Weapons Law, for a start. Weapons were involved in so many crimes that, Swing reasoned, reducing the number of weapons had to reduce the crime rate.

  Vimes wondered if he'd sat up in bed in the middle of the night and hugged himself when he'd dreamed that one up. Confiscate all weapons, and crime would go down. It made sense. It would have worked, too, if only there had been enough coppers—say, three per citizen.

  Amazingly, quite a few weapons were handed in. The flaw, though, was one that had somehow managed to escape Swing, and it was this: criminals don't obey the law. It's more or less a requirement for the job. They had no particular interest in making the streets safer for anyone except themselves. And they couldn't believe what was happening. It was like Hogswatch every day.

  Some citizens took the not unreasonable view that something had gone a bit askew if only naughty people were carrying arms. And they got arrested in large numbers. The average copper, when he's been kicked in the nadgers once too often and has reason to believe that his bosses don't much care, has an understandable tendency to prefer to arrest those people who won't instantly try to stab him, especially if they act a bit snotty and wear more expensive clothes than he personally can afford. The rate of arrests shot right up, and Swing had been very pleased about that.

  Admittedly some of the arrests had been for possessing weaponry after dark, but quite a few had been for assaults on the Watch by irate citizens. That was Assault on a City Official, a very heinous and despicable crime and, as such, far more important than all these thefts that were going on everywhere.