The Truth Read online

  The eyes were on different levels. One ear was larger than the other. The face was a network of scars. But that was nothing compared to the deformed hairstyle; Igor’s greasy black hair had been brushed forward into an overhanging quiff in the manner of some of the city’s noisier young musicians, but to a length that could take out the eye of any innocent pedestrian. By the looks of the…organic nature of Igor’s work area, he could then help put it back.

  There was a fish tank bubbling on one bench. Inside it, some potatoes were idly swimming backwards and forwards.

  “Young Igor here is part of our forensic department,” said Sergeant Angua. “Igor, this is Mr. de Worde. He wants to see the patients.”

  William saw the quick glance Igor gave the sergeant, who added, “Mister Vimes says it’s okay.”

  “Right this way, then,” said Igor, lurching past William and into the corridor. “Always nice to get visitors down here, Mr. de Worde. You will find we keep a very relaxed thell down here. I’ll just go and get the keyth.”

  “Why does he only lisp the occasional S?” said William, as Igor limped towards a cupboard.

  “He’s trying to be modern. You never met an Igor before?”

  “Not one like that, no! He’s got two thumbs on his right hand!”

  “He’s from Uberwald,” said the sergeant. “Igors are very much into self-improvement. Fine surgeons, though. Just don’t shake hands with one in a thunderstorm—”

  “Here we are, then,” said Igor, lurching back. “Who first?”

  “Lord Vetinari?” said William.

  “He’s still athleep,” said Igor.

  “What, after all this time?”

  “Not surprithing. It was a nasty blow he had—”

  Sergeant Angua coughed loudly.

  “I thought he fell off a horse,” said William.

  “Well, yes…and caught himthelf a blow when he hit the floor, I’ve no doubt,” said Igor, glancing at Angua.

  He turned the key again.

  Lord Vetinari lay on a narrow bed. His face looked pale, but he seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

  “He’s not woken up at all?” said William.

  “No. I look in on him every fifteen minutes or tho. It can be like that. Sometimeth the body just says: thleep.”

  “I heard he hardly ever sleeps,” said William.

  “Maybe he’s taking the opportunity,” said Igor, gently closing the door. He unlocked the next cell.

  Drumknott was sitting up in bed, his head bandaged. He was drinking some soup. He looked startled when he saw them, and nearly spilled it.

  “And how are we?” said Igor, as cheerfully as a face full of stitches can allow.

  “Er…I’m feeling much better…” The young man looked from one face to another, uncertain.

  “Mr. de Worde here would like to talk to you,” said Sergeant Angua. “I’ll go and help Igor sort out his eyeballs. Or something.”

  William was left in an awkward silence. Drumknott was one of those people with no discernible character. “You’re Lord de Worde’s son, aren’t you,” said Drumknott. “You write that news sheet.”

  “Yes,” said William. It seemed he’d always be his father’s son. “Um. They say Lord Vetinari stabbed you.”

  “So they say,” said the clerk.

  “You were there, though.”

  “I knocked on the door to take him his copy of the paper as he’d requested, His Lordship opened it, I walked into the room…and the next thing I know I was waking up here with Mr. Igor looking at me.”

  “That must have come as a shock,” said William, with a momentary flash of pride that the Times had figured in this in some small way.

  “They say I’d have lost the use of my arm if Igor hadn’t been so good with a needle,” said Drumknott earnestly.

  “But your head’s bandaged, too,” said William.

  “I think I must have fallen over when…when whatever it was happened,” said Drumknott.

  My gods, thought William, he’s embarrassed.

  “I have every confidence that there has been a mistake,” Drumknott went on.

  “Has His Lordship been preoccupied lately?”

  “His Lordship is always preoccupied. It’s his job,” said the clerk.

  “Do you know that three people heard him say that he’d killed you?”

  “I cannot explain that. They must have been mistaken.”

  The words were clipped sharp. Any moment now, William thought…

  “Why do you think—” he began, and was proved right.

  “I think I don’t have to talk to you,” said Drumknott. “Do I?”

  “No, but—”

  “Sergeant!” Drumknott shouted.

  There were swift footsteps and the cell door opened.

  “Yes?” said Sergeant Angua.

  “I have finished talking to this gentleman,” said Drumknott. “And I am tired.”

  William sighed, and put his notebook away.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been very…helpful.”

  As he walked along the corridor he said, “He doesn’t want to believe His Lordship might have attacked him.”

  “Really,” said the sergeant.

  “Looks like quite a bang he had on his head,” William went on.

  “Does it?”

  “Look, even I can see this smells funny.”

  “Can you?”

  “I see,” said William. “You went to the Mister Vimes School of Communication, yes?”

  “Did I?” said Sergeant Angua.

  “Loyalty is a wonderful thing.”

  “Is it? The way out is this way—”

  After the sergeant had ushered William into the street she went back upstairs into Vimes’s office and quietly shut the door behind her.

  “So he only spotted the gargoyles?” said Vimes, who was watching William walk down the street.

  “Apparently. But I wouldn’t underestimate him, sir. He notices things. He was dead right about the peppermint bomb. And how many officers would have noticed how deeply that arrow went into the floor?”

  “That’s unfortunately true.”

  “And he spotted Igor’s second thumb, and hardly anyone else has noticed the swimming potatoes.”

  “Igor hasn’t got rid of them yet?”

  “No, sir. He believes that instant fish and chips is only a generation away.”

  Vimes sighed.

  “All right, Sergeant. Forget the potatoes. What are the odds?”

  “Sir?”

  “I know what goes on in the duty room. They wouldn’t be watchmen if someone wasn’t running a book.”

  “On Mr. de Worde?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well…six’ll get you ten that he’ll be dead by next Monday, sir.”

  “You might just spread the word that I don’t like that sort of thing, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Find out who’s running the book, and when you have found out that it is Nobby, take it off him.”

  “Right, sir. And Mr. de Worde?”

  Vimes stared at the ceiling.

  “How many officers are watching him?” he said.

  “Two.”

  “Nobby’s usually good at judging odds. Think that’ll be enough?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. But we’re stretched. He’s going to have to learn the hard way. And the trouble with the hard way is, you only get one lesson.”

  Mr. Tulip emerged from the alleyway where he had just negotiated the purchase of a very small packet of what would later prove to be rat poison cut with powdered washing crystals.

  He found Mr. Pin reading a large piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “Trouble, I expect,” said Mr. Pin, folding it up and putting it in his pocket. “Yes, indeed.”

  “This city is getting on my —ing nerves,” said Mr. Tulip, as they continued down the street. “I got a —ing headache. And my leg hurts.�
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  “So? It bit me, too. You made a big mistake with that dog.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t’ve shot at it?”

  “No, I’m saying you shouldn’t’ve missed. It got away.”

  “It’s only a dog,” Mr. Tulip grumbled. “What’s such a problem about a dog? It’s not like it’s a reliable —ing witness. They never told us about no —ing dog.” His ankle was beginning to get that hot, dark sensation that suggested that someone hadn’t been brushing their teeth lately. “You just try carrying a guy with a —ing dog snapping at your legs! And how come the —ing zombie never told us the guy was so —ing fast? If he hadn’t been staring at the geek he’d have —ing got me!”

  Mr. Pin shrugged. But he’d made a note of that. Mr. Slant had failed to tell the New Firm quite a lot of things, and one of them was that Vetinari moved like a snake.

  This was going to cost the lawyer a lot of money. Mr. Pin had nearly got cut.

  But he was proud of stabbing the clerk and shoving Charlie out of the landing to babble to the stupid servants. That hadn’t been in the script. That was the kind of service you got from the New Firm. He snapped his fingers as he walked. Yeah! They could react, they could extemporize, they could get creative…

  “Excuse me, gentlemen?”

  A figure had stepped out of the alleyway ahead of them, a knife in each hand.

  “Thieves’ Guild,” it said. “Excuse me? This is an official robbery.”

  To the surprise of the thief, Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip seemed neither shocked nor frightened, despite the size of the knives. Instead, they looked like a pair of lepidopterists who’d stumbled across an entirely new kind of butterfly, and found it trying to wave a tiny little net.

  “Official robbery?” said Mr. Tulip, slowly.

  “Ah, you’re visitors to our fair city?” said the thief. “Then this is your lucky day, sir and…sir. A theft of twenty-five dollars entitles you to immunity from further street theft for a period of a full six months plus, for this week only, the choice of this handsome box of crystal wine glasses or a useful set of barbecue tools, which will be the envy of your friends.”

  “You mean…you’re legal?” said Mr. Pin.

  “What —ing friends?” said Mr. Tulip.

  “Yes, sir. Lord Vetinari feels that since there’ll always be some crime in the city, it might as well be organized.”

  Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin looked at one another.

  “Well, ‘Legal’ is my middle name,” said Mr. Pin, shrugging. “Over to you, Mr. Tulip.”

  “And since you are newcomers, I can offer you an introductory hundred-dollar theft which will give you subsequent immunity for a full twenty-six months plus this booklet of restaurant, livery hire, clothing, and entertainment vouchers worth a full twenty-five dollars at today’s prices. Your neighbors will admire—”

  Mr. Tulip’s arm moved in a blur. One banana-bunch hand caught the thief around the neck and slammed his head against the wall.

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Tulip’s middle name is ‘Bastard,’” said Mr. Pin, lighting a cigarette. The meaty sounds of his colleague’s permanent anger continued behind him as he picked up the wineglasses and examined them critically.

  “Tch…cheap paste, not crystal at all,” he said. “Who can you trust these days? It makes you despair.”

  The body of the thief slumped to the ground.

  “I think I will go for the —ing barbecue set,” said Mr. Tulip, stepping over it. “I see here where it contains a number of oh-so-useful skewers and spatulas that will add a —ing new dimension of enjoyment to those Al Fresco patio meals.”

  He ripped open the box and dragged out a blue and white apron, which he examined critically.

  “‘Kill the Cook!!!’” he said, slipping it over his head. “Hey, this is classy stuff. I’ll have to get some —ing friends, so’s they can envy me when I’m having meals with —ing Al Fresco. How about them —ing vouchers?”

  “There’s never any good stuff in these things,” said Mr. Pin. “It’s just a way of shifting stuff no one can sell. See here…‘Twenty-five Percent Off Happy Hour Prices at Furby’s Castle of Cabbage’…” He tossed it aside.

  “Not bad, though,” said Mr. Tulip. “And he only had twenty dollars on him, so it’s a —ing bargain.”

  “I’ll be glad when we leave this place,” said Mr. Pin. “It’s too strange. Let’s just frighten the dead man and get out of here.”

  “Eyinnngg…GUT!”

  The cry of the wild newspaper seller rang out across the twilight square as William set off back to Gleam Street. They were still selling well, he could see.

  It was only by accident, as a citizen hurried past him, that he saw the headline:

  WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO COBRA

  Surely Sacharissa hadn’t got out another edition by herself, had she? He ran back to the seller.

  It wasn’t the Times. The title, in big bold type that was rather better than the stuff the dwarfs made, was:

  “What’s all this?” he said to the seller, who was socially above Ron’s group by several layers of grime.

  “All this what?”

  “All this this!” The stupid interview with Drumknott had left William very annoyed.

  “Don’t ask me, guv. I get a penny for every one I sell, that’s all I know.”

  “‘Rain of Soup in Genua’? ‘Hen Lays Egg Three Times in Hurricane’? Where’d all this come from?”

  “Look, guv, if I was a readin’ man I wouldn’t be flogging papers, right?”

  “Someone else has started a paper!” said William. He cast his eyes down to the small print at the bottom of the single page and, in this paper, even the small print wasn’t very small. “In Gleam Street?”

  He recalled the workmen bustling around outside the old warehouse. How could—but the Engravers’ Guild could, couldn’t they? They already had presses, and they certainly had the money. Tuppence was ridiculous, though, even for this single sheet of…of rubbish. If the seller got a penny, then how in the world could the printer make any money?

  Then he realized: that wouldn’t be the point, would it…the point was to put the Times out of business.

  A big red and white sign for the Inquirer was already in place across the street from the Bucket. More carts were queuing outside.

  One of Goodmountain’s dwarfs was peering around from behind the wall.

  “There’s three presses in there already,” he said. “You saw what they’ve done? They got it out in half an hour!”

  “Yes, but it’s only one sheet. And it’s made-up stuff.”

  “Is it? Even the one about the snake?”

  “I’d bet a thousand dollars.” William remembered that the smaller print had said this had happened in Lancre. He revised his estimate. “I’d bet at least a hundred dollars.”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” said the dwarf. “You’d better come in.”

  At least the press was creaking away, but most of the dwarfs were idle.

  “Shall I give you the headlines?” said Sacharissa, as he entered.

  “You’d better,” said William, sitting down at his crowded desk.

  “Engravers Offer Dwarfs One Thousand Dollars for Press.”

  “Oh, no…”

  “Vampire Iconographer and Hard-Working Writer Tempted with Five-Hundred-Dollar Salaries,” Sacharissa went on.

  “Oh, really…”

  “Dwarfs Buggered for Paper.”

  “What?”

  “That’s a direct quote from Mr. Goodmountain,” said Sacharissa. “I don’t pretend to know exactly what it means, but I understand they’ve got enough for only one more edition.”

  “And if we want any more it’s five times the old price,” said Goodmountain, coming up. “The Engravers are buying it up. Supply and demand, King says.”

  “King?” William’s brow wrinkled. “You mean Mr. King?”

  “Yeah, King of the Golden River,” said the dwarf. “And, yeah, we could just abou
t pay that but if them across the road are going to sell their sheet for tuppence we’ll be working for practically nothing.”

  “Otto told the man from the Guild that he’d break his pledge if he saw him here again,” said Sacharissa. “He was very angry because the man was angling to find out how he was taking printable iconographs.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m staying. I don’t trust them, especially when they’re so sneaky. They seemed very…low-class people,” said Sacharissa. “But what are we going to do?”

  William bit his thumbnail and stared at his desk. When he moved his feet, a boot fetched up against the money chest with a reassuring thud.

  “We could cut down a bit, I daresay,” said Goodmountain.

  “Yes, but then people won’t buy the paper,” said Sacharissa. “And they ought to buy our paper, because it’s got real news in it.”

  “The news in the Inquirer looks more interesting, I have to admit,” said Goodmountain.

  “That’s because it doesn’t actually have to have any facts in it!” she snapped. “Now, I don’t mind going back to a dollar a day and Otto says he’d work for half a dollar if he can go on living in the cellar.”

  William was still staring at nothing.

  “Apart from the truth,” he said, in a distant voice, “what have we got that the Guild hasn’t got? Can we print faster?”

  “One press against three? No,” said Goodmountain. “But I bet we can set type faster.”

  “And that means…?”

  “We can probably beat them in getting the first paper onto the street.”

  “Okay. That might help. Sacharissa, do you know anyone who wants a job?”

  “Know? Haven’t you been looking at the letters?”

  “Not as such…”

  “Lots of people want a job! This is Ankh-Morpork!”

  “All right, find the three letters with the fewest spelling mistakes and send Rocky around to hire the writers.”