The other man at the table took the pipe out of his mouth and gave Vimes a smile of manic friendliness.
‘I don’t believe wwwe have had the pleasure,’ he said, extending a hand. It should not be possible to roll your double-yous, but John Smith managed it.
Shake hands with a vampire? Not bloody likely, Vimes thought, not even one wearing a badly hand-knitted pullover. He saluted instead.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ he said crisply, standing to attention. It really was an awful garment, that pullover. It had a queasy zigzag pattern, in many strange, unhappy colours. It looked like something knitted as a present by a colour-blind aunt, the sort of thing you wouldn’t dare throw away in case the rubbish collectors laughed at you and kicked your bins over.
‘Vimes, Mr Smith is—’ Vetinari began.
‘President of the Ankh-Morpork Mission of the Uberwald League of Temperance,’ said Vimes. ‘And I believe the lady next to him to be Mrs Doreen Winkings, treasurer of same. This is about having a vampire in the Watch, isn’t it, sir? Again.’
‘Yes, Vimes, it is,’ said Vetinari. ‘And, yes, it is again. Shall we all be seated? Vimes?’
There was no escape, Vimes knew, as he sagged resentfully into a chair. And this time he was going to lose. Vetinari had cornered him.
Vimes knew all the arguments for having different species in the Watch. They were good arguments. Some of the arguments against them were bad arguments. There were trolls in the Watch, plenty of dwarfs, one werewolf, three golems, an Igor and, not least, Corporal Nobbs,[1]so why not a vampire? And the League of Temperance was a fact. Vampires wearing the League’s Black Ribbon (‘Not one Drop!’) were a fact, too. Admittedly, vampires who had sworn off blood could be a bit weird, but they were intelligent and clever and as such a potential asset to society. And the Watch was the most visible arm of government in the city. Why not set an example?
Because, said Vimes’s battered but still functional soul, you hate bloody vampires. No messing about, no dissembling, no weasel words about ‘the public won’t stand for it’ or ‘it’s not the right time’. You hate bloody vampires and it’s your bloody Watch.
The other three were staring at him.
‘Mr Vimes,’ said Mrs Winkings, ‘ve cannot help but notice that you still haf not employed any of our members in the Vatch…’
Say ‘Watch’, why don’t you? Vimes thought. I know you can. Let the twenty-third letter of the alphabet enter your life. Ask Mr Smith for some, he’s got more than enough. Anyway, I have a new argument. It’s copper bottomed.
‘Mrs Winkings,’ he said aloud, ‘no vampire has applied to join the Watch. They’re just not mentally suited to a copper’s way of life. And it’s Commander Vimes, thank you.’
Mrs Winkings’s little eyes gleamed with righteous malice.
‘Oh, are you sayink vampires are… stupid?’ she said.
‘No, Mrs Winkings, I’m saying that they’re intelligent. And there’s your problem, right there. Why would a clever person want to risk getting their nadg— their head kicked in on a daily basis for thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances? Vampires have got class, an education, a von in front of their name. There’s a hundred better things for them to be doing than walking the streets as a cop. What do you want me to do, force them to join the force?’
‘Wwwouldn’t they be offered officer rank?’ said John Smith. There was sweat on his face and his permanent smile was manic. Rumour had it he was finding the Pledge very hard going.
‘No. Everyone starts on the street,’ said Vimes. That wasn’t entirely true, but the question had offended him. ‘And on the Night Watch, too. Good training. The best there is. A week of rainy nights with the mists coming up and the water trickling down your neck and odd noises in the shadows… well, that’s when we find out if we’ve got a real copper—’
He knew it as soon as he said it. He’d walked right into it. They must have found a candidate!
‘Vell, zat is good news!’ said Mrs Winkings, leaning back.
Vimes wanted to shake her and shout: You’re not a vampire, Doreen! You’re married to one, yes, but he didn’t become one until a time when it is beyond human imagining that he could possibly have wanted to bite you! All the real Black Ribboners try to act normal and unobtrusive! No flowing cloaks, no sucking and definitely no ripping the underwired nightdresses off young ladies! Everyone knows John Not-A-Vampire-At-All Smith used to be Count Vargo St Gruet von Vilinus! But now he smokes a pipe and wears those horrible sweaters and he collects bananas and makes models of human organs out of matchsticks because he thinks hobbies make you more human! But you, Doreen? You were born in Cockbill Street! Your mum was a washerwoman! No one would ever rip your nightdress off, not without a crane! But you’re so… into this, right? It’s a damn hobby. You try to look more like vampires than vampires do! Incidentally, those fake pointy teeth rattle when you talk!
‘Vimes?’
‘Hmm?’ Vimes was aware that people had been speaking.
‘Mr Smith has some good news,’ said Vetinari.
‘Indeed yes,’ said John Smith, beaming manically. ‘Wwwe have a recruit for you, commander. A vampire wwho wwants to be in the Wwwatch!’
‘Ant, of course, zer night vill not prezsent a problem,’ said Doreen triumphantly. ‘Ve are zer night!’
‘Are you trying to tell me that I must—’ Vimes began.
Vetinari cut in quickly. ‘Oh, no, commander. We all fully respect your autonomy as head of the Watch. Clearly, you must hire whomsoever you think fit. All I ask is that the candidate is interviewed, in a spirit of fairness.’
Yeah, right, thought Vimes. And politics with Uberwald will become just that bit easier, won’t it, if you can say you even have a Black Ribboner in the Watch. And if I turn this man down, I’ll have to explain why. And ‘I just don’t like vampires, okay?’ probably won’t do.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Send him along.’
‘He is in fact she,’ said Lord Vetinari. He glanced down at his paperwork. ‘Salacia Deloresista Amanita Trigestatra Zeldana Malifee…’ He paused, turned over several pages, and said, ‘I think we can skip some of these, but they end “von Humpeding”. She is fifty-one, but’ he added quickly, before Vimes could seize on this revelation, ‘that is no age at all for a vampire. Oh, and she’d prefer to be known simply as Sally.’
The locker room wasn’t big enough. Nothing like big enough. Sergeant Angua tried not to inhale.
A large hall, that was fine. The open air, even better. What she needed was room to breathe. More specifically, she needed room not to breathe vampire.
Damn Cheery! But she couldn’t have refused, that would have looked bad. All she could do was grin and bear it and fight down a pressing desire to rip out the girl’s throat with her teeth.
She must know she’s doing it, she thought. They must know that they exude this air of effortless ease, confident in any company, at home everywhere, making everyone else feel second class and awkward. Oh, my. Call me Sally, indeed!
‘Sorry about this,’ she said aloud, trying to force the hairs on the back of her neck not to rise. ‘It’s a bit close in here.’ She coughed. ‘Anyway, this is it. Don’t worry, it always smells like this in here. And don’t bother to lock your locker, all the keys are the same and anyway most of the doors spring open if you hit the frame in the right way. Don’t keep valuables in it, this place is too full of coppers. And don’t get too upset when someone puts holy water or a wooden stake in there.’
1
This was a bit of a slur on Nobby, Vimes had to admit. Nobby was human, just like many other officers. It was just that he was the only one who had to carry a certificate to prove it.