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‘Oh, you can do all that too, sure,’ said Mr Tulip. ‘Just so long as you’ve got your –ing potato.’
‘And you come back alive?’ said Mr Pin, still trying to find the small print.
‘Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who’d notice the –ing difference?’
Mr Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr Tulip saw his expression change.
‘Someone’s got their hand on my shoulder!’ he hissed.
‘You feeling all right, Mr Pin?’
‘You can’t see anyone?’
‘Nope.’
Clenching his fists, Mr Pin turned round. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.
He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.
‘Okay. Okay,’ he said. ‘What we’ll do . . . we’ll go back to the house, okay, and . . . and we’ll get the rest of the diamonds, and we’ll scrag Charlie, and, and . . . we’ll find a vegetable shop . . . any special kind of potato?’
‘Nope.’
‘Right. . . but first. . .’ Mr Pin stopped, and his mind’s ear heard footsteps stop behind him a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things . . .
Mr Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamour, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.
‘That bloody vampire did this,’ he said. ‘And killing a vampire . . . hey . . . that’s practically good, right?’ He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. ‘Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man’s favour, eh?’
‘Yeah. But . . . who cares?’
‘I do.’
‘Okay.’ Even Mr Tulip didn’t argue with that tone of voice. Mr ,Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was
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that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.
It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath-salt-and-worming-powder-ravaged pathways of his own brain. He’d always admired the way Mr Pin wasn’t frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.
‘What’ll we use?’ he said. ‘A stake?’
‘No,’ said Mr Pin. ‘With this one I want to be certain.’
He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.
‘Ah. Right,’ said Mr Tulip.
‘Let’s just do it,’ said Mr Pin.
Rocky’s brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.
‘What’s dem things?’ he said.
They’re to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,’ said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. ‘It’s a sort of curse. Only it works.’
‘Dat one’s the Assassins?’ said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.
‘Yes. It means there’s an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.’
‘Wouldn’t want dem interested in me. Good job you got a key . . .’
The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.
Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork’s great houses, when the owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more respectable charities. She hadn’t realized how a building could change when people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale. The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere descended on her like a headache.
Behind her Rocky lit a couple of lanterns. But even their light left her surrounded by shadows.
At least the main staircase wasn’t hard to find, and William’s hasty directions led her to a suite of rooms bigger than her house.
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The wardrobe, when she found it, was simply a room full of rails and hangers.
Things glittered in the gloom. The dresses also smelled strongly of mothballs.
‘Dat’s interestin’,’ said Rocky, behind her.
‘Oh, it’s just to keep the moths away,’ said Sacharissa.
‘I’m lookin’ at all the footprints,’ said the troll. ‘Dey were in the hall, too.’
She tore her gaze away from the rows of dresses and looked down. The dust was certainly disturbed.
‘Er . . . cleaning lady?’ she said. ‘Someone must come in to keep an eye on things?’
‘What she do, kick der dust to death?’
‘I suppose there must be . . . caretakers and things?’ said Sacharissa uncertainly. A blue dress was saying: wear me, I’m just your type. See me shimmer.
Rocky prodded a box of mothballs that had spilled out across a dressing table and rolled into the dust.
‘Looks like dem moths are really keen on dese things,’ he said.
‘You don’t think a dress like this would be a bit . . . forward, do you?’ said Sacharissa, holding the dress against herself.
Rocky looked worried. He hadn’t been hired for his dress sense, and certainly not for his grasp of colloquial Middle Class.
‘You’re quite a lot forward already,’ he opined.
‘I meant make me look like a fast woman!’
‘Ah, right,’ said Rocky, getting there. ‘No. Def’nitly not.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure. No one could run much in a dress like dat.’
Sacharissa gave up. ‘I suppose Mrs Hotbed could let it out a bit,’ she said, reflectively. It was tempting to stay, because some of the racks were quite full, but she felt like a trespasser here and part of her was certain that a woman with hundreds of dresses was more likely to miss one than a woman with a dozen or so. In any case, the empty darkness was getting on her nerves. It was full of other people’s ghosts. ‘Let’s get back.’
When they were halfway across the hall someone started to sing. The words were incoherent and the tune was being modulated by
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alcohol, but it was singing of a sort and it was under their feet.
Rocky shrugged when Sacharissa glanced at him.
‘Maybe all dem moths is having a ball?’ he said.
There must be a caretaker, mustn’t there? Maybe we’d better just, you know, mention we’ve been here?’ Sacharissa agonized. It hardly seems polite, just taking things and running
She headed for a green door tucked away beside the staircase and pushed it open. The singing went louder for a moment but stopped as soon as she said, ‘Excuse me?’ into the darkness.
After a few moments’ silence a voice said: ‘Hello! How are you? I’m fine!’
‘It’s only, er, me? William said it was all right?’ She presented the statement like a question, in the voice of someone who was apologizing to a burglar for discovering him.
‘Mr Mothball Nose? Whoops!’ said the voice in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Er . . . are you all right?’
‘Can’t get . . . it’s a . . . hahaha . . . it’s all chains . . . hahaha . . .’
‘Are you . . . ill?’
‘No, I’m fine, not ill at all, jus’ had a few too many
‘Few too many what?’ said Sacharissa, speaking from a sheltered upbringing.
‘. . . wazza . . . things you put drink in . . . barrels?’
‘You’re drunk!’
‘Tha’s right! Tha’s the word! Drunk as a . . . thing . . . smellything . . . ahahaha . . .’
There was a tinkle of glass.
The lantern’s weak glow showed what looked like a wine cellar, but a man was slumped on a bench against one wall and a chain ran from his ankle to a ring set in the floor.
‘Are you . . . a prisoner?’ said Sacharissa.
‘Ahaha
‘How long have you been down here?’ She crept down.
‘Years . . ‘
‘Years?’
‘Got lots of years . . .’ The man picked up a bottle and peered at it. ‘Now . . . Year of the Amending Camel . . . that was
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bloodigoodyear . . . and this one . . . Year of the Translated Rat . . . another bloodigoodyear . . . bloodigoodyears, the lot of them. Could do with a biscuit, though.’
Sacharissa’s knowledge of vintages extended just as far as knowing that Chateau Maison was a very popular wine. But people didn’t have to be chained up to drink wine, even the stuff from Ephebe that stuck the glass to the table.
She moved a little closer and the light fell on the man’s face. It was locked in the grin of the seriously drunk, but it was very recognizable. She saw it every day, on coins.
‘Er. . . Rocky,’ she said. ‘Er. . . can you come down here a minute?’
The door burst open and the troll came down the steps at speed. Unfortunately, it was because he was rolling.