* In the same way that ancient forests become coal, ancient swaths of natural sugar cane can become, under the pressure of millennia, what in various parts of the Disc is known as hokeypokey, pig treacle or rock molasses. But much boiling and purification was necessary to create the thick golden syrup that was the city dweller’s honey, and these days Ankh-Morpork’s supplies come from the more accessible toffee beds near Quirm.
Inside the treacleroofed stable level, chewing a bit of bad hay, was the horse. Vimes knew it was a horse because it checked out as one: four hooves, tail, head with mane, seedy brown coat.
Considered from another angle, it was half a ton of bones held together with horsehair.
He patted it gingerly; as one of nature’s pedestrians, he’d never been at home around horses. He unhooked a greasy
clipboard from a nail near by and flicked through its pages.
Then he had another look around the yard. Tilden never did that.
He looked at the pigsty in the corner where Knock kept his pig, and then at the chicken run, and the pigeon loft, and the badly made rabbit hutches, and he did a few calculations.
The old Watch House! It was all there, just like the day he first arrived. It had been two houses once, and one of them had been the treacle mine office. Everywhere in the city had been something else once. And so the place was a maze of blockedin doorways and ancient windows and poky rooms.
He wandered around like a man in a museum. See the old
-98-
helmet on a stick for archery practice! See Sergeant Knock’s brokenspringed armchair, where he used to sit out on sunny afternoons!
And, inside, the smell: floor wax, stale sweat, armour polish, unwashed clothes, ink, a hint of fried fish and always, here, a taint of treacle.
The Night Watch. He was back.
When the first members of the Night Watch came in they
found a man perfectly at ease, leaning back in a chair with his feet on a desk and leafing through paperwork. The man had sergeant’s stripes and an air of an unsprung trap. He was also giving absolutely no attention to the newcomers. He particularly paid no heed to one gangly lanceconstable who was still new enough to have tried to put a shine on his breastplate…
They fanned out among the desks, with muttered
conversations.
Vimes knew them in his soul. They were in the Night Watch because they were too scruffy, ugly, incompetent, awkwardly shaped or bloodyminded for the Day Watch. They were honest, in that special policeman sense of the word. That is, they didn’t steal things too heavy to carry. And they had the morale of damp gingerbread.
He’d wondered last night about giving them some kind of pep talk by way of introduction, and decided against it. They might be very bad at it but they were coppers, and coppers did not respond well to the Happy Families approach: ‘Hello, chaps, call me Christopher, my door is always open, I’in sure if we all pull together we shall get along splendidly like one big happy family.’ They’d seen too many families to fall for that rubbish.
Someone cleared their throat with malice aforethought. Vimes glanced up and into the face of Sergeant ‘Knocker’ Knock and, for a fraction of a second, had to suppress the urge to salute.
Then he remembered what Knock was.
-99-
‘Well?’ he said.
‘That’s my desk you’re sitting at, sergeant,’ said Knock.
Vimes sighed, and pointed to the little crown on his sleeve.
‘See this, sergeant?’ he said. ‘It’s what they used to call the hat of authority.’
Knock’s little weaselly eyes focused on the crown. And then they went back to Vimes’s face, and widened in the shock of recognition.
‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Knock.
‘That’s “bloody hell, sir,”‘ said Vimes. ‘But “sarge” will do.
Most of the time. And this is your mob, is it? Oh dear. Well, let’s make a start.’
He swung his feet off the desk and stood up. ‘I’ve been looking at the feed bills for Marilyn,’ he said. ‘Interesting reading, lads. According to my rough calculations a horse eating that much ought to be approximately spherical. Instead, she’s so thin that with two sticks and some sheet music I could give you a tune.’
Vimes put the papers down. ‘Don’t think I don’t know where the corn goes. I bet I know who’s got the chickens and rabbits and pigeons,’ he said. ‘And the pig. I bet the captain thinks they get fat on leftovers.’
‘Yeah, but-‘ a voice began.
Vimes’s hand slammed on the desk. ‘You lot even starve the damn horse!’ he said. That stops right now! So will a lot of other things. I know how it works, see? Mumping free beer and a doughnut, well, that’s part of being a copper. And who knows, there might even be a few greasy spoons in this town so happy to see a copper that they will spontaneously offer him a free nosh. Stranger things have happened. But nicking the oats from Marilyn, that stops now. And another thing. Says here that last night the hurryup wagon had eight passengers,’ he said. ‘Two of
-100-
them I know about,.’cos one of them must’ve been me and I met the other man. The cells are empty this morning. What happened to the other six? Sergeant Knock?’
The sergeant licked his lips nervously. ‘Dropped ’em off in Cable Street for questioning, o’course,’ he said. ‘As per instructions.’
‘Did you get a receipt?’
‘A what?’
‘Your men hauled in six people who were staying out late and you handed them over to the Unmentionables,’ said Vimes, with the calm that comes before a storm. ‘Did they sign for them? Do you even know their names?’
‘Orders is just to hand ’em over,’ said Knock, trying a little defiance. ‘Hand ’em over and come away.’
Vimes filed that for future reference and said: ‘Now, I didn’t get taken there ‘cos we had a bit of a… misunderstanding. And as you can see it was a bigger misunderstanding than you thought, because I’in not down in the Tanty counting cockroaches, Knock. No, indeed.’ He took a few steps forward. ‘I am standing in front of you, Knock. Isn’t that what I’in doing?’
‘Yes, sarge,’ Knock muttered, pale with fear and fury.
‘Yes, sarge,’ said Vimes. ‘But there was another man in the cells, and he’s gone too. All I want to know is: how much, and who to? I don’t want any looks of cherubic innocence, I don’t want any “don’t know what you’re talking about, sir”, I just want to know: how much, and who to?’
A cloud of red, resentful solidarity settled over the faces in front of him. But he didn’t need telling. He could remember.
Corporal Quirke always had a private income from bribes; he’d been like Nobby Nobbs without the latter’s amiable
incompetence. An efficient Nobby, in fact, and you could throw into the mix bullying and brownnosing and a delight in small
-101-
evils.
Vimes’s gaze fell on Quirke, and stayed there.
‘I know you were on the wagon last night, corporal,’ he said.
‘You and Lance-Constable, er, Vimes, it says here.’
‘Not worth worrying anyone if they look a decent sort,’ Quirke said.
And he ‘d said: ‘How can we tell they’re a decent sort, corp?’
‘Well, see how much they can afford.’
‘You mean we let ’em go if they’re rich?’
‘Way of the world, lad, way of the world. No reason why we shouldn ‘t get our share, eh? Did you see his moneybag? Five dollars should do it. Four for me and one for you, ‘cos you’re learning. That’s nearly three days’ pay, it ‘II cheer up your ol’
mum no end, and where’s the loser?’
‘But suppose he’s nicked the money, corp?’
‘Suppose the moon was made of cheese? Would you like a
slice?’
‘I think it was five dollars, corporal,’ said Vimes, and watched the man’s lizard eyes flash towards the young lanceconstable.
‘No, the man in the cell talked,’ lied Vimes. ‘Told me I was an idiot not to buy my way out. So, Mister Quirke, it’s like this.
They’re crying out for good men in the Day Watch, but if you don’t stand too close to the light you might pass. Get along there right now!’
‘Everybody does it!’ Quirke burst out. ‘It’s perksl’
‘Everybody?’ said Vimes. He looked around at the squad.
‘Anyone else here take bribes?’
His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team. Only three
members met his gaze. There was Lance-Corporal Colon, who
-102-
could be a little slow. There was a certain lanceconstable, whose face was a mask of terror. And there was a darkhaired,
roundfaced constable who seemed to be puzzled, as if he was trying to remember something, but who nevertheless stared back with the firm steady gaze of the true liar.