‘All right, Detritus,’ he said. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Just a feelin’, sir,’ rumbled the troll. ‘I know “fick” is my middle name…’
‘I didn’t know you had a first name, sergeant.’
‘I don’t fink dis was one of dem accidents dat happens by accident.’
‘He might have fallen off the coach when he was unloading it,’ said Vimes.
‘An’ I might be the Fairy Clinkerbell, sir.’
Vimes was impressed. This was lowtemperature thinking from Detritus.
‘Der street doors is open,’ said Detritus. ‘I reckon Igor disturbed someone who was pinchin’ stuff.’
‘But you said nothing was missing.’
‘Maybe der thief took fright, sir.’
‘What, at seeing Igor? Could be …’
Vimes looked at the bags and boxes. Then he looked again. Things had been thrown down any old how. That wasn’t how you unpacked a coach, unless you were looking for something in a real hurry. Who’d go to these lengths to steal food?
‘Nothing was missing…’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Who packed the coach, Detritus?’
‘Dunno, sir. I fink her ladyship just ordered a lot of stuff.’
‘And we left in a bit of a rush, too …’ Vimes stopped. Best to leave it there. He had an idea but, well, where was the evidence? You could say: nothing that should have been there was missing, so what must have been taken was something that shouldn’t have been there.
No. For now, it was just something to remember.
They walked into the hall, and Vimes’s eye fell on a pile of cards on a table by the door.
‘Der’s been a lot of visitors,’ said Detritus.
Vimes took a handful of cards. Some of them had gold edging.
‘Dem diplomatics all want you to come for drinky-poos an’ stories about chickens,’ the troll added helpfully.
‘Cocktails, I think you’ll find,’ said Vimes, reading through the pasteboards. ‘Hmm, Klatch … Muntab … Genua … Lancre … Lancre? It’s a kingdom you could spit across! They’ve got an embassy here?’
‘No, sir, mostly dey’ve got a letterbox.’
‘Will we all fit in?’
‘Dey’ve rented a house for der coronation, sir.’
Vimes dropped the invitations back on to the table.
‘I don’t think I can face any of this stuff,’ he said. ‘A man can only drink so much fruit juice and listen to so many bad jokes. Where’s the nearest clacks tower, Detritus?’
‘About fifteen miles Hubwards, sir.’
‘I’d like to find out what’s going on back home. I think that this afternoon Lady Sybil and I will have a nice quiet ride in the country. It’ll take her mind off things.’
And then he thought, I’ll wait until midnight, see?
And it’s still only lunchtime.
In the end Vimes took Igor as driver and guide, and the guards Tantony and the one he would forever think of as Colonesque. Skimmer still hadn’t returned from whatever nefarious expedition was occupying his time, and Vimes was damned if he’d leave the embassy unguarded.
Yet another word for diplomat, Vimes mused, was ‘spy’. The only difference was that the host government knew who you were. The game was to outwit them, presumably.
The sun was warm, the breeze was cold, the mountain air made every peak look as if Vimes could reach out and touch it. Outside the town snow-covered vineyards and farms clung to slopes that in AnkhMorpork would be called walls, but after a while the pine forests closed in. Here and there, at a curve in the road, the river was visible far below.
Up on the box Igor was crooning a lament.
‘He told me Igors heal very fast,’ said Lady Sybil.
‘They’d have to.’
‘Mister Skimmer said they’re very gifted surgeons, Sam.’
‘Except cosmetically, perhaps.’
The coach slowed.
‘Do you come up here a lot, Igor?’ said Vimes.
‘Mithter Thleep uthed to have me drive over onthe a week to collect methageth, marthter.’
‘I’d have thought it’d be easier to have a pickup tower in Bonk.’
‘The counthil are dead againtht it, thur.’
‘And you?’
‘I am very modern in my outlook, thur.’
The tower loomed quite close now. The first
twenty feet or so were of stone with narrow, barred windows. Then there was a broad platform from which the main tower grew. It was a sensible arrangement. An enemy would find it hard to break in or set fire to it, there was enough storage room inside to see out a siege, and the enemy would be aware that the lads inside would have signalled for help thirty seconds after the attack began. The company had money. They were like the coaching agents in that respect. If a tower went out of action, someone would be along to ask expensive questions. There was no law here; the kind of people who’d turn up would be inclined to leave a message to the world that towers were not to be touched.
Everyone should know this, and therefore it was odd to see that the big signal arms were stationary.
The hairs rose on Vimes’s neck. ‘Stay in the carriage, Sybil,’ he said.
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Vimes, who was sure. He stepped down and nodded to Igor.
‘I’m going to have a look inside,’ he said. ‘If there is any … trouble, you’re to get Lady Sybil back to the embassy, all right?’
Vimes leaned back into the coach and, trying not to look at Sybil, lifted up one of the seats and pulled out the sword he had hidden there.
‘Sam!’ she said accusingly.
‘Sorry, dear. I thought I ought to carry a spare.’
There was a bellpull by the door of the tower. Vimes tugged at it and heard a clang somewhere above.
When nothing else happened he tried the door. It swung open.
‘Hello?’
There was silence.
‘This is the Wa-‘ Vimes stopped. It wasn’t the Watch, was it? Not out here. The badge didn’t work. He was just an inquisitive trespassing bastard.
‘Anyone there?’
The room was piled high with sacks, boxes and barrels. A wooden stairway led up to the next floor. Vimes climbed up into a combined bedroom and mess room; there were only two bunks, their covers pulled back.
A chair was on the floor. A meal was on the table, knife and fork laid down carefully. On the stove something had boiled dry in an iron pot. Vimes opened the firebox door, and there was a whoomph as the inrushing air rekindled the charred wood.
And, from above, the chink of metal.
He looked at the ladder and trapdoor to the next floor. Anyone climbing it would be presenting their head at a convenient height for a blade or a boot
‘Tricky, isn’t it, your grace?’ said someone above him. ‘You’d better come up. Mmm, mmhm.’
‘Inigo?’
‘It’s safe enough, your grace. There’s only me here. Mmm.’
‘That counts as safe, does it?’
Vimes climbed the ladder. Inigo was sitting at a table, leafing through a stack of papers.
‘Where’s the crew?’
‘That, your grace,’ said Inigo, ‘is one of the mysteries, mmm, mmm.’
‘And the others are-?’
Inigo nodded towards the steps leading upwards. ‘See for yourself.’
The controls for -the arms had been comprehensively smashed. Laths and bits of wire dangled forlornly from their complex framework.
‘Several hours of repair work for skilled men, I’d say,’ said Inigo, as Vimes returned.
‘What happened here, Inigo?’
‘I would say the men who lived here were forced to leave, mmph, mmhm. In some disorder.’
‘But it’s a fortified tower!’
‘So? They have to cut firewood. Oh, the company has rules, and then they put three young men in some lonely tower for weeks at a time and they expect them to act like clockwork people. See the trapdoor up to the controls? That should be locked at all times. Now you, your grace, and myself as well, because we are … are-‘
‘Bastards?’ Vimes supplied.
‘Well, yes … mmm … we’d have devised a system that meant the clacks couldn’t even be operated unless the trapdoor was shut, wouldn’t we?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘And we’d have written into the rules that the presence of any visitor in the tower would, mmhm, be automatically transmitted to the neighbouring towers, too.’
‘Probably. That’d be a start.’
‘As it is, I suspect that any harmless-looking visitor with a nice fresh apple pie for the lads would be warmly welcomed,’ sighed Inigo. ‘They do two-month shifts. Nothing to look at but trees, mmm.’
‘No blood, not much sign of a struggle,’ said Vimes. ‘Have you checked outside?’
‘There should be a horse in the stable. It’s gone. We’re more or less on rock here. There’s wolf tracks, but there’s wolf tracks everywhere around here. And the wind’s blown the snow. They’ve … gone, your grace.’
‘Are you sure the men let someone in through the door?’ Vimes said. ‘Anyone who could land on the platform could be in one of these windows in an instant.’
‘A vampire, mmm?’
‘It’s a thought, isn’t it?’