AND YOUR SKULL TOO, said Death.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Hopkinson, in the voice of one who regards skulls as ten a penny but is well aware of the rarity value of a good bread exhibit. ‘But what was wrong with a simple cosh? Or even a hammer? I could have provided one if asked.’
Death, who was by nature an obsessive personality himself, realized that he was in the presence of a master. The late Mr Hopkinson had a squeaky voice and wore his spectacles on a length of black tape — his ghost now wore their spiritual counterpart — and these were always the signs of a mind that polished the undersides of furniture and stored paperclips by size.
‘It really is too bad,’ said Mr Hopkinson. ‘And ungrateful, too, after the help I gave them with the oven. I really feel I shall have to complain.’
MR HOPKINSON, ARE YOU FULLY AWARE THAT YOU ARE DEAD?
‘Dead?’ trilled the curator. ‘Oh, no. I can’t possibly be dead. Not at the moment. It’s simply not convenient. I haven’t even catalogued the combat muffins.’
NEVERTHELESS.
‘No, no. I’m sorry, but it just won’t do. You will have to wait. I really cannot be bothered with that sort of nonsense.’
Death was nonplussed. Most people were, after the initial confusion, somewhat relieved when they died. A subconscious weight had been removed. The other cosmic shoe had dropped. The worst had happened and they could, metaphorically, get on with their lives. Few people treated it as a simple annoyance that might go away if you complained enough.
Mr Hopkinson’s hand went through a tabletop. ‘Oh.’
YOU SEE?
‘This is most uncalled-for. Couldn’t you have arranged a less awkward time?’
ONLY BY CONSULTATION WITH YOUR MURDERER.
‘It all seems very badly organized. I wish to make a complaint. I pay my taxes, after all.’
I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES.{6} I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.
The shade of Mr Hopkinson began to fade. ‘It’s simply that I’ve always tried to plan ahead in a sensible way …’
I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES.
‘That seems very irresponsible …’
IT’S ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME.
The sedan chair came to a halt outside Pseudopolis Yard. Vimes left the runners to park it and strode in, putting his coat back on.
There had been a time, and it seemed like only yesterday, when the Watch House had been almost empty. There’d be old Sergeant Colon dozing in his chair, and Corporal Nobbs’s washing drying in front of the stove. And then suddenly it had all changed …
Sergeant Colon was waiting for him with a clipboard. ‘Got the reports from the other Watch Houses, sir,’ he said, trotting along beside Vimes.
‘Anything special?’
‘Bin a bit of an odd murder, sir. Down in one of them old houses on Misbegot Bridge. Some old priest. Dunno much about it. The patrol just said it ought to be looked at.’
‘Who found him?’
‘Constable Visit, sir.’
‘Oh, gods.’
‘Yessir.’
‘I’ll try to get along there this morning. Anything else?’
‘Corporal Nobbs is sick, sir.’
‘Oh, I know that.’
‘I mean off sick, sir.’
‘Not his granny’s funeral this time?’
‘Nossir.’
‘How many’s he had this year, by the way?’
‘Seven, sir.’
‘Very odd family, the Nobbses.’
‘Yessir.’
‘Fred, you don’t have to keep calling me “sir”.’
‘Got comp’ny, sir,’ said the sergeant, glancing meaningfully towards a bench in the main office. ‘Come for that alchemy job.’
A dwarf smiled nervously at Vimes.
‘All right,’ said Vimes. ‘I’ll see him in my office.’ He reached into his coat and took out the assassin’s money pouch. ‘Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?’
‘Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we’ll soon be able to afford some more widows.’
Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He’d been a bit worried about the title — you heard stories about strange folk in the country — but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read.
Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins’ Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn’t get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be careful. Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.
He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold weather. He liked to hear the sounds of the city. But anyone trying to climb up or down to it would run into everything in the way of loose tiles, shifting handholds and treacherous drainpipes that Vimes’s ingenuity could contrive. And Vimes had installed spiked railings down below. They were nice and ornamental but they were, above all, spiky.
So far, Vimes was winning.
There was a tentative knock at the door.
It had issued from the knuckles of the dwarf applicant. Vimes ushered him into the office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You’re an alchemist. Acid stains on your hands and no eyebrows.’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Not usual to find a dwarf in that line of work. You people always seem to toil in your uncle’s foundry or something.’
You people, the dwarf noted. ‘Can’t get the hang of metal,’ he said.
‘A dwarf who can’t get the hang of metal? That must be unique.’
‘Pretty rare, sir. But I was quite good at alchemy.’
‘Guild member?’
‘Not any more, sir.’
‘Oh? How did you leave the guild?’
‘Through the roof, sir. But I’m pretty certain I know what I did wrong.’
Vimes leaned back. ‘The alchemists are always blowing things up. I never heard of them getting sacked for it.’
‘That’s because no one’s ever blown up the Guild Council, sir.’
‘What, all of it?’
‘Most of it, sir. All the easily detachable bits, at least.’
Vimes found he was automatically opening the bottom drawer of his desk. He pushed it shut again and, instead, shuffled the papers in front of him. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
The dwarf swallowed. This was clearly the bit he’d been dreading. ‘Littlebottom, sir.’
Vimes didn’t even look up. ‘Ah, yes. It says here. That means you’re from the Uberwald mountain area, yes?’
‘Why … yes, sir,’ said Littlebottom, mildly surprised. Humans generally couldn’t distinguish between dwarf clans.
‘Our Constable Angua comes from there,’ said Vimes. ‘Now … it says here your first name is … can’t read Fred’s handwriting … er …’
There was nothing for it. ‘Cheery, sir,’ said Cheery Littlebottom.
‘Cheery, eh? Good to see the old naming traditions kept up.{7} Cheery Littlebottom. Fine.’
Littlebottom watched carefully. Not the faintest glimmer of amusement had crossed Vimes’s face.
‘Yes, sir. Cheery Littlebottom,’ he said. And there still wasn’t as much as an extra wrinkle there. ‘My father was Jolly. Jolly Littlebottom,’ he added, as one might prod at a bad tooth to see when the pain will come.