‘Very good point,’ said Carrot carefully. ‘So, what’s the strongest smell heading Hubwards?’
‘Dung carts, o’course. Yesterday. Always a big clear-out of the pens first thing Friday morning.’
‘You can follow the smell?’
Gaspode rolled his eyes. ‘With my head in a bucket.’
‘Good. Let’s go.’
‘So,’ said Gaspode, as they began to leave the gate’s bustle behind, ‘we’re chasing this girl, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not like with dogs, then, where there might be twenty or thirty?’
No.
‘So we’re not looking at a bucket of cold water here?’
No.
Constable Shoe saluted, but a little testily. He’d been waiting rather a long time. ‘Afternoon, sergeant-‘
‘That’s captain,’ said Captain Colon. ‘See the pip on my shoulder, Reg?’
Reg looked closely. ‘I thought it was bird doings, Barge.’
‘That’s captain,’ said Colon automatically. ‘It’s only chalk now because I ain’t got time to get it done properly,’ he said. ‘So don’t be cheeky.’
‘What’s up with Nobby?’ said Reg. _ Corporal Nobbs was holding a damp cloth over one eye.
‘Bit of a contry tomps with an illegally parked troll,’ said Captain Colon.
‘Shows what kind of troll he was, striking a lady,’ muttered Nobby.
‘But you ain’t a lady, Nobby. You’re just wearing your traffic-calming disguise.’
‘He wasn’t to know.’
‘You’d got your helmet on. Anyway, you shouldn’t have clamped him.’
‘He was parked, Fred.’
‘He’d been knocked down by a cart,’ said Captain Colon. ‘And that’s captain.’
‘Well, they always have excuses,’ said Nobby sullenly.
‘You’d better show us the corpus, Reg,’ said Colon.
The body in the cellar was duly inspected.
‘… and I remember Cheery saying there was a smell of cat’s pee and sulphur at the Dwarf Bread Museum,’ said Reg.
‘Certainly hangs about,’ said Colon. ‘You wouldn’t have blocked sinuses if you worked here for a day.’
‘And I thought, “I wonder if someone’d tried to make a mould of the replica Scone”, sir,’ said Reg.
‘Now that is clever,’ said Fred Colon. ‘You’d get
the real one back then, wouldn’t you?’
‘Er, no, Barge-captain. But you’d get a copy of the. replica.’
‘Would that be legal?’
‘Can’t say, sir. I wouldn’t think so. It wouldn’t fool a dwarf for five minutes.’
‘Then who’d want to kill him?’
‘A father of thirteen kids, maybe?’ said Nobby. ‘Haha.’
‘Nobby, will you stop pinching the merchandise?’ said Colon. ‘And don’t argue, I just saw you put a couple of dozen in your handbag.’
‘Dat don’t matter,’ rumbled the troll. ‘Mister Sonky always said dey was free to the Watch.’
‘That was very … civic of him,’ said Captain Colon.
‘Yeah, he said der last frog we wanted was more bloody coppers around the city.’
A pigeon chose that diplomatic moment to flutter into the factory and land on Colon’s shoulder, where it promoted him. Colon reached up, removed the message capsule and unfolded the contents.
‘It’s from Visit,’ he said. ‘There’s a Clue, he says.’
‘What to?’ said Nobby.
‘Not to anything, Nobby. Just a Clue.’ He took off his helmet and wiped his brow. This was what he’d hoped to avoid. In his heart of battered hearts, he suspected that Vimes and Carrot were good at putting clues next to other clues and thinking about them. That was their talent. He had others … well, he was good with people, and he had a shiny breastplate, and he could sergeant in his sleep ‘All right, write up your report,’ he said. ‘Well done. We’re going back to the Yard.
‘I can see this is going to get on top of me,’ said Colon, as they walked away. ‘There’s paperwork, too. You know me and paperwork, Nobby.’
‘You’re a very thorough reader, that’s all, Fred,’ said Nobby. ‘I’ve seen you take ages over just one page. Digesting it magisterially, I thought.’
Colon brightened a little. ‘Yes, that’s what I do,’ he said.
‘Even if it’s only the menu down at the Klatchian Take-Away, I’ve seen you staring at one line for a minute at a time.’
‘Well, obviously you can’t let people put one over on you,’ said Colon, sticking out his chest, or at least sticking it further up.
‘What you need is an aide de camp,’ said Nobby, lifting his dress to step over a puddle.
‘I do?’
‘Oh, yes. ‘Cos of you being a figurehead and setting an example to your men,’ said Nobby.
‘Ah. Right. Yes,’ said Colon, grasping the idea with relief. ‘A man can’t be expected to do all that and read long words, am I right?’
‘Exactly. And, of course, we’re down one sergeant at the Yard now,’ said Nobby.
‘Good point, Nobby. It’s going to be busy.’
They walked on for a while.
‘You could promote someone,’ Nobby prompted.
‘Could I?’
‘What good’s being the boss if you can’t?’
‘That’s true. And it’s sort of an emergency. Hmm … any thoughts, Nobby?’
Nobby sighed inwardly. A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon.
‘A name springs to mind,’ he said.
‘Ah, right. Yes. Reg Shoe, right? Good at writing, a keen thinker, and of course he’s cool headed,’ said Colon. ‘Icy, practically.’
‘But a bit on the dead side,’ said Nobby.
‘Yes, I suppose that counts against him.’
‘And he goes to pieces unpredictably,’ said Nobby.
‘That’s true,’ said Captain Colon. ‘No one likes shaking hands and ending up with more fingers than they started with.’
‘So p’raps it might be best to consider someone who has been unreasonably overlooked,’ said Nobby, going for broke. ‘Someone whose face dunt fit, p’raps. Someone whose experience in the Watch genially and in Traffic in particular could be of great service to the city if people wouldn’t go on about one or two lapses which didn’t happen in any case.’
The dawn of intelligence rose across the vistas of Colon’s face.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see. Well, why didn’t you come right out with that at the start, Nobby?’
‘Well, it’s your decision, Fred … I mean, captain,’ said Nobby earnestly.
‘But s’posing Mister Vimes doesn’t agree? He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.’
‘That’ll be long enough,’ said Nobby.
‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Me? Mind? Not me. You know me, Fred, always ready to do my bit.’
‘Nobby?’
‘Yes, Fred?’
‘The dress …’
‘Yes, Fred?’
‘I thought we weren’t doing the … traffic calming any more?’
‘Yes, Fred. But I thought I’d keep it on ready to swing into action just in case you decided that we should.’
A chilly wind blew across the cabbage fields.
To Gaspode it brought, besides the overpowering fumes of the cabbage and the dark red smell of the dung carts, hints of pine, mountains, snow, sweat and stale cigar smoke. The last came from the cart men’s habit of smoking large, cheap cigars. They kept the flies off.
It was better than vision. The world of smell stretched before Gaspode.
‘My paws hurt,’ he said.
‘There’s a good dog,’ said Carrot.
The road forked. Gaspode stopped and snuffled around. ‘Well, here’s an int’resting frog,’ he said. ‘Some of the dung’s jumped down off’f the cart and headed away across the fields here. You were right.’
‘Can you smell water anywhere around?’ said Carrot, scanning the flat plain.
Gaspode’s mottled nose wrinkled up in effort. ‘Pond,’ he said. ‘Not very big. ‘bout a mile away.’
‘She’ll be heading towards it. Very meticulous about cleanliness, Angua. That’s not usual in werewolves.’
‘Never been one for water myself,’ said Gaspode.
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Here, no need for that! I had a B-A-T-H once, you know, it’s not as if I don’t know what it’s like.’
The pond was in a clump of wind-blown trees. Dry grass rustled in the breeze. A single coot scuttled into the reeds as Carrot and Gaspode approached.
‘Yeah, here we are,’ said Gaspode. ‘A lot of muck goes in, and’ – he sniffed at the stirred-up mud – ‘er, yeah, she comes out. Um.’
‘Is there a problem?’ said Carrot.
‘What? Oh, no. Clear scent. Headin’ for the mountains, just like you said. Um.’ Gaspode sat down and scratched himself with a hind leg.
‘There’s a problem, isn’t there … ?’ said Carrot.
‘Well, supposin’ there was something really bad that you wouldn’t really want to know, and I knew what it was … How’d you feel about me tellin’ you? I mean, some peopled rather not know. It’s a pers’nal thing.’
‘Gaspode!’
‘She’s not alone. There’s another wolf.’
‘Ah.’ Carrot’s mild, uninformative smile did not change.
‘Er, of the male persuasion,’ said Gaspode. ‘A boy wolf. Er. Very much so.’
‘Thank you, Gaspode.’
‘Extremely male. Um. In a very def’nite way. Unmistakably.’
‘Yes, I think I understand.’
‘And this is just words. In smell, it’s a lot more, well, emphatic.’
‘Thank you for that, Gaspode. And they’re heading…’
‘Still straight for the mountains, boss,’ said Gaspode, as kindly as he could. He wasn’t certain of all the details of human sexual relationships, and the ones he was certain of he still couldn’t quite believe, but he knew that they were a lot more complicated than those enjoyed by the doggy fraternity.