Night Watch tds-27 Page 14

  He shoved Nobby on to a bench, placed the greasy bowl in front of him, and sat down opposite.

  “You said a lady,” he said. “Don't mess me about, Nobby.”

  “Have I got to share this, sarge?” said Nobby, picking up a wooden spoon.

  “It's all yours. Make sure you eat up every bit. There may be a test later,” said Vimes. “A woman, you said.”

  “Lady Meserole, sarge,” said Nobby indistinctly, through a mouthful of mixed vegetables and grease. “Posh lady. Everyone calls her Madam. Come from Genua a few months ago.”

  “When did she ask you?”

  “This morning, sarge.”

  “What? She just stopped you in the street?”

  “Er…I've got a kind of gen'ral contract with her, sarge.”

  Vimes glared. It was better than speaking. Nobby wriggled uneasily.

  “Fact is, sarge, she…er, caught me snickering her nolly last month. Hell's bells, sarge, she's got a punch on her like a mule! When I come round, we got to talking, and she said a keen young lad like me could be useful as, like, an ear on the street.”

  Vimes continued to glare, but he was impressed. Young Nobby had been a gifted pickpocket. Anyone who caught him in the act was quick indeed. He turned up the ferocity of the glare.

  “All right, sarge, she said she'd turn me over to the Day Watch if I didn't,” Nobby confessed, “and you go straight to the Tanty if a nob lays a complaint against you.”

  That's bloody true, thought Vimes. Private law again.

  “I don't want to go to the Tanty, sarge. Sconner's in there.”

  And he used to break your arms, Vimes remembered. “So why's a fine lady interested in me, Nobby?” he said aloud.

  “Didn't ask. I told 'er about you an' the hurry-up wagon and the Unmentionables and everything. She said you sounded fascinatin'. An' Rosie Palm's paying me a measly penny a day to keep an eye on you, too. Oh, an' Corporal Snubbs at Cable Street, he's payin' me one half-penny to watch you, but what is a half-penny these days, say I, so I don't watch you much on his account. Oh, and Lance-Corporal Coates, I'm getting a penny from him, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno. He asked me this morning, too. A penny job.” Nobby belched hugely. “Better out than in, eh? Who d'you want me to watch for you, sarge?”

  “Me,” said Vimes. “If you can fit me into your busy schedule.”

  “You want me to follow you?”

  “No, just tell me what people are saying about me. Keep an eye on who else is following me. Watch my back, sort of thing.”

  “Right!”

  “Good. Just one more thing, Nobby…”

  “Yes, sarge?” said Nobby, still spooning.

  “Give me back my notebook, my handkerchief and the four pennies you whizzed from my pockets, will you?”

  Nobby opened his mouth to protest, dribbling slumgullet, but closed it when he saw the glint in Vimes's eye. Silently, he produced the items from various horrible pockets.

  “Well done,” said Vimes, getting up. “I'm sure I don't have to tell you what'll happen to you if you try the old dippitydoodah on me again, do I, Nobby?”

  “No, sarge,” said Nobby, looking down.

  “Want another bowl? Have fun. I've got to go to work.”

  “You can rely on me, sarge!”

  Oddly enough, thought Vimes as he walked back to the Watch House, I probably can. Nobby would nick anything and dodge anything but he wasn't bad. You could trust him with your life, although you'd be daft to trust him with a dollar.

  He purchased a packet of Pantweed's Slim Panatellas from another street trader. Carrying them around in their cardboard packet didn't feel right at all.

  There was a buzz in the main office as he strolled in. Watchmen were standing around in little groups. Sergeant Knock spotted Vimes and trotted over.

  “Bit of a do, sir. Had a break-in last night,” he reported, with just a hint of smirk.

  “Really?” said Vimes. “What did they steal?”

  “Did I say they stole anything, sir?” said the sergeant innocently.

  “Well, no, you didn't,” said Vimes. “That was me jumping to what we call a conclusion. Did they steal anything, then, or did they break in to deliver a box of chocolates and a small complimentary basket of fruit?”

  “They stole the captain's silver inkstand,” said Knock, impervious to sarcasm. “And it was an inside job, if you want my opinion. The door upstairs was forced but the main doors weren't. Must've been a copper what done it!”

  Vimes was amazed at the forensic expertise shown here. “My word, a copper stealing?” he said.

  “Yes, a terrible thing,” said Knock earnestly. “Especially since you showed us the way yesterday, about being honest and everything.” He glanced past Vimes, and shouted. “Attention! Officer present!”

  Tilden was coming down the stairs. The room fell silent, except for his hesitant steps.

  “No luck, sergeant?” he said.

  “Not so far, sir,” said Knock. “I was just telling Sergeant Keel here what a terrible thing has happened.”

  “It was engraved, you know,” said Tilden mournfully. “Everyone in the regiment chipped in what they could afford. This really is very…upsetting.”

  “A man'd have to be a right bastard to steal something like that, eh, sergeant?” said Knock.

  “Absolutely,” said Vimes. “I see you're pretty well organized on this one, sergeant. Have you looked everywhere?”

  “Everywhere except the lockers,” said Knock. “That's not something we'd do lightly, rummaging through a man's locker. But we're all here now, and Captain Tilden's here to see fair play, so although it's very distasteful I'll ask you, captain, for permission to rummage.”

  “Yes, yes, if you must,” said Tilden. “I don't like the idea. It is really quite dishonourable, you know.”

  “Then I think, sir, to show that we're doing this fairly,” said Knock, “us sergeants ought to be searched first. That way no one can say we don't take it seriously.”

  “Come now, sergeant,” said Tilden, with a little smile, “I hardly think you are suspected.”

  “No, sir, fair's fair,” said Knock. “We'll set a good example, eh, Sergeant Keel?”

  Vimes shrugged. Knock grinned at him, pulled out a bundle of keys and beckoned to Lance-Corporal Coates.

  “You do the honours, Ned,” he said, beaming. “Me first, o'course.”

  The door was unlocked. The contents of Knock's locker were the usual unsavoury mess of lockers everywhere, but there was certainly no silver inkstand. If there were, it would have turned black after a single day.

  “Well done. Now Sergeant Keel's, please, Ned.”

  Knock's friendly beam fixed on Vimes as the policeman fumbled with the lock. Vimes stared back, face blank as a slate, as the door creaked open.

  “Oh dear, what have we here?” said Knock, without even bothering to look.

  “It's a sack, sarge,” said Coates. “Something heavy in it, too.”

  “Oh dear me,” said Knock, still staring at Vimes. “Open it up, lad. Gently. We don't want anything to get damaged, eh?”

  There was a rustle of hessian, and then:

  “Er…it's half a brick,” Ned reported.

  “What?”

  “A half brick, sir.”

  “I'm saving up for a house,” said Vimes. There were one or two sniggers from the assembled men, but some of the faster thinkers were suddenly looking worried.

  They know, thought Vimes. Well, lads, welcome to Vimes's Roulette. You spun the wheel and now you've got to guess where the ball is going to go…”

  “Are you sure?” said Knock, turning to the open locker.

  “It's just a sack, sarge,” said Ned. “And half a brick.”

  “Is there a loose panel or something?” said Knock desperately.

  “What, in a sack, sarge?”

  “Well, that seems to be our lockers,” said Vimes, rubbing his hands together. “Who's ne
xt, Sergeant Knock?” Round and round the little ball goes, and where it stops, nobody knows…

  “Y'know, person'ly, I think the captain's right, I don't think any of the men would—” Knock began, and faltered. Vimes's stare could have hammered rivets.

  “I believe, sergeant, that since we have begun this, it should be concluded,” said Tilden. “That is only fair.”

  Vimes took a couple of steps towards Coates and held out his hand. “Keys,” he said.

  Coates glared at him.

  “The keys, lance-corporal,” said Vimes.

  He snatched them from Coates's hand, and turned to the line of lockers.

  “Right,” he said. “Let's start with the well-known arch-criminal, Lance-Constable Vimes…”

  Door after door was opened. The lockers, while possibly of interest to anyone studying the smells of unwashed clothing and the things that could grow on neglected socks, failed to produce a single silver inkstand.

  It did turn up The Amorous Adventurs of Molly Clapper in Corporal Colon's locker, however. Vimes stared at the crude and grubby engravings like a long-lost friend. He remembered that book; it had gone around the Watch House for years, and as a young man he had learned a lot from some of the illustrations, although a good deal of what he'd learned had turned out to be wrong.

  Fortunately, Captain Tilden's view was blocked and Vimes shoved the greasy book back on the shelf and said to the red-eared Colon: “Studying theory, eh, Fred? Good man. Practice makes perfect.”

  Then he turned, at last, to Coates's locker. The man was watching him like a hawk.

  The scratched door creaked open. Every neck craned to see. There was a stack of old notebooks, some civilian clothing and a small sack of what, when it was tipped out on to the floor, turned out to be laundry.

  “Surprised?” said the lance-corporal.

  Not half as much as you, Vimes thought.

  He winked at Coates, and turned away. “Can I have a word with you in your office, captain?”

  “Yes, sergeant, I suppose so,” said Tilden, looking around. “Oh, dear…”

  Vimes gave the man some time to climb the stairs, then followed him into his office and tactfully closed the door.

  “Well, sergeant?” said Tilden, collapsing into his chair.

  “Have you looked everywhere, sir?” said Vimes.

  “Of course, man!”

  “I mean, sir, perhaps you put it in a desk drawer? Or the safe, perhaps?”

  “Certainly not! I sometimes put it in the safe at weekends, but I'm…sure I didn't do that last night.”

  Vimes noted the subtle uncertainty. He was doing a bad thing, he knew. Tilden was nearly seventy. At a time like that, a man learned to treat his memory as only a rough guide to events.

  “I find, sir, that when a busy man has a lot on his plate he can do things that subsequently slip his mind,” he said. I know I do, he added to himself. I could put my house keys down in a bare room and not find them thirty seconds later.

  “We've all been under a lot of pressure lately,” he added, knowing that Tilden frequently fell asleep during the afternoon until Snouty coughed very loudly outside the door before taking him his cocoa.

  “Well, that's true,” said Tilden, turning desperate eyes to him. “All this curfew business. Very…unsettling. Forget my own head if it wasn't nailed on, what?”

  He turned and looked at the green safe.

  “Only had it a couple of months,” he muttered. “I suppose I…look the other way, will you, sergeant? May as well sort this out.”

  Vimes obligingly turned his back. There was some clicking, and a creak, and then an intake of breath.

  Tilden got to his feet, holding the silver inkstand. “I believe I've made a fool of myself, sergeant,” he said.

  No, I've made a fool of you, thought Vimes, fervently wishing he hadn't. I'd intended to drop it into Coates's locker, but I couldn't…

  …not after what I found in there.

  “Tell you what, sir,” he volunteered, “we could say it was a kind of test.”

  “I don't tell lies as a rule, Keel!” said the captain, but added, “I appreciate the suggestion, nevertheless. Anyway, I know I'm not as young as I was. Perhaps it's time to retire,” he sighed. “I have to say I've been considering it for some time.”

  “Oh, don't talk like that, sir,” said Vimes, far more jovially than he felt. “I can't see you retiring.”

  “Yes, I suppose I should see things through,” Tilden mumbled, walking back to his desk. “Do you know, sergeant, that some of the men think you are a spy?”

  “Who for?” said Vimes, reflecting that Snouty delivered more than cocoa.

  “Lord Winder, I assume,” said Tilden.

  “Well, we all work for him, sir. But I don't report to anyone but you, if that's any help.”

  Tilden looked up at him and shook his head sadly. “Spy or not, Keel, I don't mind telling you that some of the orders we've been getting lately have…not been thought out properly, in my opinion, what?”

  He gave Vimes a glare as if defying him to produce the red-hot thumbscrews there and then.

  Vimes could see how much the admission that abduction and torture and conspiracy to criminalize honest citizens might not be acceptable government policy was costing the old man. Tilden hadn't been brought up to think like that. He'd ridden off under the flag of Ankh-Morpork to fight the Cheese-Eaters of Quirm or Johnny Klatchian or whatever enemies had been selected by those higher up the chain of command with never a second thought about the Tightness of the cause, because that sort of thinking could slow a soldier down.

  Tilden had grown up knowing that the people at the top were right. That was why they were at the top. He didn't have the mental vocabulary to think like a traitor, because only traitors thought like that.

  “Haven't been here long enough to comment, sir,” said Vimes. “Don't know how you do things here.”

  “Not like we used to,” mumbled Tilden.

  “Just as you say, sir.”

  “Snouty says you know your way around remarkably well, sergeant. For someone new to the city.”

  That was a sentence with a hook on the end, but Tilden was an inexperienced angler.

  “One nick is pretty much like any other, sir,” said Vimes. “And, of course, I've visited the city before.”

  “Of course. Of course,” said Tilden hurriedly. “Well…thank you, sergeant. If you could, er, explain things to the men? I'd be grateful—”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  Vimes shut the door carefully behind him and went down the steps two at a time. The squad below had barely moved. He clapped his hands like a schoolteacher.

  “C'mon, c'mon, you've got patrols to go to! Get moving! Not you, Sergeant Knock—a word in the yard, please!”

  Vimes didn't bother to wait to see if the man would follow him. He went out into the late afternoon sunshine, leaned against the wall, and waited.

  Ten years ago, he'd have—correction, ten years ago, if he was sober, he'd have taught Knock a few lessons about who's boss with several well-aimed punches. And that was certainly the custom these days. Scraps between watchmen hadn't been uncommon when Vimes was a constable. But that wouldn't do for Sergeant Keel.

  Knock stepped out, inflated with mad, terrified bravado.

  When Vimes raised his hand, the man actually flinched.

  “Cigar?” said Vimes.

  “Er…”

  “I don't drink,” said Vimes. “But you can't beat a good cigar.”

  “I…er…don't smoke,” mumbled Knock. “Look, about that inkstand—”

  “D'you know, he'd gone and put it in that safe of his?” said Vimes, smiling.

  “He had?”

  “And then forgotten about it,” said Vimes. “Happens to us all, Winsborough. A man's mind starts to wander, he's never quite certain of what he's done.”

  Vimes maintained the friendly grin. It was as good as raining blows. Besides, he'd given Knock his c
orrect name. The man never used it in public, for fear of the panic it might cause.

  “Just thought I'd put your mind at rest about it,” said Vimes.

  Sergeant Winsborough Knock shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. He wasn't certain whether he'd got away with something, or had just ended up getting deeper into something else.

  “Tell me more about Lance-Corporal Coates,” said Vimes.

  Knock's face was, for a moment, an agony of calculation. And then he adopted his usual policy: when you think there's wolves on your trail, throw someone off the sleigh.

  “Ned, sir?” he said. “Hard worker, of course, does his job—but a bit tricky, between you and me.”

  “How? And you don't have to call me ‘sir’, Winsborough. Not out here.”

  “He reckons Jack's as good as his master, if you know what I mean. Reckons he's as good as anyone. Bit of a troublemaker in that respect.”

  “Barrack-room lawyer?”

  “That sort of thing, yes.”

  “Rebel sympathies?”

  Knock turned his eyes up innocently. “Could be, sir. Wouldn't like to see the lad in trouble, o'course.”

  You think I'm a spy for the Unmentionables, thought Vimes. And you're throwing Coates to me. The other day you were pushing him for promotion. You little worm.

  “Worth keeping an eye on, then?” he said aloud.

  “Yessir.”

  “Interesting,” said Vimes, always a worrying word to the uncertain. It certainly worried Knock, and Vimes thought: my gods, perhaps Vetinari feels like this all the time…

  “Some of us, er, go round to the Broken Drum after the shift's over,” said Knock. “It's open round the clock. I don't know if you—”

  “I don't drink,” said Vimes.

  “Oh. Yes. You said,” said Knock.

  “And now I'd better pick up young Sam and get out on patrol,” said Vimes. “Nice to have this little talk with you, Winsborough.”

  He strode past, taking care not to look back. Sam was still waiting in the main office, but was sucked into his wake as he swept past.

  “I say, who's the skirt up there with old Folly?”