Chapter Text
A mad idea occurs to me in the early hours of the morning. I’ve finished two cigars and I’m contemplating some of Sybil’s gin when it strikes. I think: Sam Vimes you idiot. But I’m going to do it anyway because it seems the most straightforward solution to the entire situation.
If Dragon has dirt on Madam I might as well relieve him of the burden. In my head is Vetinari’s cool expression and one that is clearly saying: this is foolhardy and I’m not paying you overtime for it.
I ignore it. He isn’t my boss.
The way to Dragon’s at four in the morning is through a soupy mixture of side streets and Ankh-Morpork’s humid gloom. The street lights aren’t lit as I near the docks and I cannot help but wonder if it is on purpose or out of neglect. My mind casts back to childhood days. We didn’t have lights then but there were boys you could hire for a penny who would carry a torch for you and light the way. I had spent many nights being that boy. For two pennies we’d wait outside of the destination to guide the mac homeward. If some of those lads ended up working for Bogus, or Bogus’ predecessor as it was at the time, well that was the hazard of needing light in dark places.
Before the current Patrician went the way of hatters he had the lights installed. In some areas they are reliable. They line well paved streets that have trees between them and sometimes, even, there are lights in the trees. People in places like that think they can see better for it.
I blame Vetinari for my brown mood and let myself into Dragon’s through a back window.
His office is as it was when I first visited. Moving from the window to his desk I pry open a bottom drawer, take out papers then feel around but there’s no false bottom. I do the same for the other drawers as well – still no luck. With a sigh I look around and spot a cabinet in a corner and scoot over to it. First port of call is to flip through the books. One is filled with some interesting numbers so I pocket it. The rest are either ancient texts from Ankh-Morpork’s more illustrious past or smut. I leave them aside. The drawers again prove to be of little use. Feeling along the back of the cabinet I notice that it seems further from the wall than it should be. A bit of maneuvering and blind groping and sheer luck a panel is located and pried open.
Gold.
And by gold I mean papers. I find the one on Sybil and pocket it. Then another on Rust – ha! It is left in the pile. I cannot take it all or else he’d notice. Eventually, towards the bottom of the stack are some letters in Madam’s handwriting. I skim them. Oh, very delicate letters in Madam’s handwriting. About some very delicate situations involving people of power in Pseudopolis, Genua, even Lancre. I take them. Look for some more but find nothing on Adora Belle Dearheart so the remainder are shoved away.
I pause. Do I feel like playing with fire? The panel, hidden behind Tacitus and a dirty collection of prints, is obnoxious in its presence. The Vimes family has never been one to play it safe. I return to it, grab the rest of his goods, and close it. If I end up in the Ankh tomorrow it will be my own damn fault.
As I put the office back to the order that I found it in there is a noise, presumably from the room next door. A shuffling, a movement of bodies. Opening the door to the hall I look in both direction then sneak off to the room next door. Inside, low beds and lounges. Curtains. A layer of grime. The smell of opium. One person closest to me has eyes closed and the palour of a dead man. I think nothing of it until I notice a bit of rust-red at his collar.
Vampires.
Can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.
I back out of the room and back into Dragon’s office, through the window and if I run back to my office can anyone blame me? There is nothing in this world that gives me the creeps more than vampires.
Sybil arrives at nine with coffee.
‘Have you slept?’
‘A little. On my desk.’
‘So no.’
I shrug. She’s a swell dame and puts a cup of black in front of me. Her face says: I want to tell you to sleep but I know you won’t listen to me so I had better see you drink that entire cup of coffee or gods help.
She can have an expressive face when she wants to. What colour is she today? All orange. It is bold. Most won’t try and pull off orange. She does it with grace and class.
‘I haven’t heard anything further,’ she says taking a seat at her desk. ‘From our mutual friend.’
‘Here,’ I hand the paper regarding her blackmail over. She inspects it.
‘How’d you get this?’
‘I did some light legwork last night. This morning. I figured I should pull you out of the soup since I didn’t mean to plunge you in as far as I did.’
The paper is now a source of disgust to her. She lights a match and burns it on a plate. Then she turns back to me and is angry.
‘You did exactly what last night?’
‘This morning. Light legwork. After your cove took off around one.’
‘He had a meeting this morning.’
‘Yes. It was a half-baked plan I’ll admit but it came off all right. For now. Until he figures it out – Dragon that is – and sends hounds of hell to me. You should take some time off.’
She sucks in a breath. ‘If you think, Sam Vimes, that I am one to run in the face of danger-‘
‘Precisely,’ I point my matchbook at her. ‘You’re not. But it’s my fault blood suckers will be crawling around eventually so I don’t know. Visit a school chum.’
‘Hm no.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘All right. Stay armed, then.’
She smiles at me and says that she’ll instruct her father’s cook to make dishes loaded with garlic. I don’t tell her that the bloodsuckers that are after me aren’t black-ribboners anymore, judging by the man I saw at the den. I think maybe I ought to. What a thing, using opium addicts as permanent blood suppliers. I think perhaps I should tell Vetinari. But then I think, maybe he’s part of it? He’s chummy with all sorts. Many of them are not good sorts.
The thought is turned over but it rings wrong to me. In the way that Downey wouldn’t kill a man just because, Vetinari wouldn’t be involved in this the way Dragon is. On my desk is Madam’s file. Might as well close that one loop and then focus on Caro-Dearheart. If she’s missing and Dragon is after her it is only a matter of time before she and her boy are found.
My coffee is too good to be from Mars’ so I thank Sybil profusely and say she can take it out of the petty change jar. She waves it off. It’s nothing.
‘Gods I can’t keep doing this,’ I say, hauling my sorry carcass up to a standing position. ‘Getting too old to wake up hungover for…however long it’s been.’ I don’t look at her face as I leave. I’ve seen her concern too often for it to rub well. I think, on the way towards Madam’s, that perhaps I should try going cold turkey. I’m not bad enough where the tremens will kick in. There is an unusual amount of sun out and I resolve to myself: That’s it, not another drink at least until this case is solved. For the sake of my liver at the very least.
Madam breathes out a cloud of smoke as I am shown into her office. She looks to wearing last evenings clothes and I am glad that we’ve clearly had long nights. She offers me a hand rolled. I accept. Can’t turn down a lady. Especially a titled one. Dames. Mina is hovering around the edges of the room. She’s attempting to be wall paper. Madam shoos her with a wave.
‘How does my case fair? Have you located our missing Caroline?’
‘Dearheart. Adora Belle Dearheart.’
‘No wonder she decided to go by Caroline. Indeed, her. News?’
‘Not yet.’ I toy with throwing her papers onto the desk but decide to play for time. ‘Visited Dragon’s last night.’
‘Did you?’
‘Found some papers. Real interesting read they are, especially the ones on you.’
‘I believe you are supposed to be on my side. That is what Havelock is paying all that money for.’
I blow out a long stream. ‘I’m on no-one’s side at the moment.’
‘How diplomatic.’
‘Dangerous, you mean. Caroline’s boy. Not Dragon – her real beau – what’s his name? No, no don’t give me that “I haven’t clue look” my lady, I know you know. Or you know a pseudonym. You know something.’
‘You’re worse than Gilt in demanding information.’
‘Well I won’t run off with your finances if that’s any consolation.’ Her face tells me it’s not. But then she smiles and is all sweetness. She makes noise as she walks across the room to a portrait. It’s the sound of silk and brocade and jewelry and you could cut the decadence with a knife. The portrait is pushed aside and a safe opened. She plucks a letter from a stack of papers and reads out a name.
I laugh. ‘You’re joking.’
‘I am assuming that his parents were well meaning and living but terribly misguided.’
‘Between the pair of them-‘
‘Quite. Can I have my papers back? Since I’ve made the trouble of getting up the least you could do, as a gentleman, is not make me do it again.’
I tell her that I’m not a gentleman and she allows this to be true but a dame like her won’t wait for no man. When she walks over and leans down my eyes stay locked with hers. When she relieves me of her papers it is done beautifully. You cannot stay angry with a woman like Madam.
‘Thank you,’ she breaths.
‘Think nothing of it,’ I mutter.
She casts a graceful smile over her shoulder and tucks the papers away in the back of the safe.
Reclining down into her chair, which does from a standing position so it is more a gentle drop down into a lounging, languid pose than the rough-shod approach of sitting then lounging. Madly, I think she must have been a dancer. Or a performer. Burlesque or some such. She moves with the poise that dancers and actors have.
‘Well?’ She asks as if she just noticed that I haven’t left. ‘Hair of the dog?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Would do you good.’
‘I’ll pass. Thanks all the same.’
She shrugs and pulls a bottle out from a desk drawer. The things this dame keeps in desk drawers.
‘What do you know of Dragon’s business? Beyond the obvious.’
‘He’s no good,’ she replies after taking a considering sip of her cure. ‘Havelock’s been – well, let us say that King of Arms is causing trouble. Syndicate trouble like in Genua and it is going to end sooner or later and it is going to end poorly for everyone.’
‘He’s a vampire.’
She inclines her head.
‘Everyone says he’s a black-ribboner.’
‘Are not all who live in Ankh-Morpork?’
I smile around the cigarette. There isn’t much of it left so I plunk it in the cup of cold tea on her desk. I say that we all should know better than that. She replies that it’s prejudice, that is all. Cannot judge a person for being differently alive.
‘No,’ I agree. ‘But I don’t like the way he is going about being differently alive. Rubs me wrong.’
‘If you can prove there’s been foul play of any kind, beyond the city’s usual, I am sure that the Watch would be interested.’
‘And your nephew.’
‘Havelock? Oh yes, he is interested in everything.’ She finishes her drink and says that she had best get started on the day as it’s already late enough in the morning. Hadn’t I better run off to tell her nephew that I’ve done my duty? I say that I will in my good time. Don’t nickel-and-dime him, she says smiling. Honey, I think, would take a smarter man than me to do that to Vetinari.
We part of amiable terms.
Arriving back at the office I find the door partially open. A quick glance confirms that it has not been forced. I grope for a weapon but find I am unarmed. There is nothing in the hallway either to make shift with. A quick decision and I opt for the slow opening rather than quick.
Standing so if somewhere were to rush me they’d have to get around the door first I gently push it open and peak in.
Fucker has his boots on my desk.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, slamming the cursed door behind.
Vetinari looks up from his newspaper.
‘Waiting for you.’
I scowl at him then stalk around to my chair. I growl out an offer of coffee since he is about to pay me I might as well be sweet to him. He declines.
‘Madam informs me that you have solved her troubles!’ He beams.
‘I have.’
‘Excellent,’ a book is produced and he scribbles down a number. ‘Take that to my bank. They will make good on it.’
I attempt to not boggle at the number. I assume my attempt drastically failed. He is amused, a flash of it, then he isn’t anymore.
‘Mr. Vimes, when I said that I hopped we wouldn’t be putting up your gravestone too soon, I was quite serious.’
I search my desk for something to smoke.
‘So when I heard that someone broke into the Dragon King of Arms office-‘
‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’ Success! There was a spare pack of rolling paper in between the bills I’ve been meaning to pay. Now for tobacco.
‘I am quite serious.’
‘I haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about.’
‘Vimes.’ I look at him, the cigarette is half-rolled. ‘You have done what I employed you to do. That is enough.’
‘Sure.’
He stares at me. I resist the urge to look away.
‘Leave the rest alone.’
There was a dead body last night, this morning, whenever. I recollect this again. Not that I had forgotten, necessarily, but rather through the haze of too much whiskey it had sort of seemed unreal. They say shock settles in long after an event. I should know that now. Gods know I’ve seen enough.
‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Can’t.’
‘Or won’t.’
I nod and light my cigarette. There you are, Mr. Vetinari. Right on the nose. When I go to ash in the coffee cup from this morning I notice my hand shaking. I know he noticed it, too. Damned if I am going to say anything, admit anything. I shove the cigarette back between lips and scowl at him.
He looks as if he is going to say something and I half-wish he would just to get whatever it is out because it’s been hanging there in the front of his damnable mind for at a few days now. I can see it. But he’s a mac who isn’t about to show his cards. He plays hard, fast and for keeps. If Uberwald Roulette were legal he’d play it.
‘You’ve paid me. I’ve done your job, what I do now is none of your concern.’
Oh the flash mac wants to protest this point! It’s rather sweet of him, really. Being concerned. I doubt he’s ever been concerned about anything in his life.
‘Very well,’ he sighs. Stands. ‘Before you go off and get yourself killed would you do me the honour of having dinner tonight? It’s my turn to choose, I believe.’
I would spread my hands and say, ‘naturally’ but as they’re shaking and I can feel a headache dawning I merely nod. He stares for a long moment.
‘Have a drink.’
‘What?’ I snap.
‘Have something to drink. If you actually want to function enough to resolve this affair then you have to have to a drink. Do the detox after. It’s madness otherwise.’
‘What would you know of that?’
‘I’m a high class drug dealer, Mr. Vimes. I know quite a lot, as it happens.’
I nod. He gives an elegant shrug and departs. Damned mac is right, of course. It’ll get worse before it gets better. When was the last time I went a full twenty-four without a drink? I can’t recall. I was possibly still drunk when I made this resolution. Isn’t that always the case, though? Wake up like hell, think, I’m never drinking again. Fall off by tea-time.
I pour myself a finger from Sybil’s gin. I’ll have to replace her bottle at some point as at this rate it’s mine more than hers.
‘Medicinal.’ I tell the room. I slam it. Fucking pine trees down the throat but it was necessary. Gods it was necessary.
The afternoon sees me to Angua’s office in the Watch House. Not much has changed since my time there. Still the same stains, the same grime, the same slouching constables even if their faces have changed. Nobby touches his helmet and says that the captain is upstairs.
‘The girl you dragged up from the river?’ I bang into her office. She gives me an exasperated look. ‘Can I see her?’
‘Police only, Mr. Vimes. You know this.’
‘Fine, can I see Cheery’s report, then?’
‘Also confidential.’ She sets her paperwork down and folds her hands. She’s a hard dame and a good cop. A damn good cop. ‘What is this about?’
‘A hunch. Can you give me a vague description?’
‘Mr. Vimes…’
‘We can go for coffee. That way you won’t be on duty when you break the law.’
Her mouth opens then closes. ‘You once cared about that.’
‘Yes, when I was your superior. I’m not anymore. Coffee?’
She looks about to say no but then switches and says fine, it is during her afternoon slump after all. A little pick-me-up wouldn’t hurt.
The newspaper shop around the corner sells a fine cup so we stop there then loiter under an overhang. The mugginess has not been improved by the sun and there is a fine smog settling in as the day careens on towards night.
‘She was no more than twenty five. It’s hard to say how long she’d been dead. Water, especially Ankh water, doesn’t help establishing a rough TOD. Also lacking blood.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She was bloodless.’
‘Vampire.’
‘No. Well, there were none of the usual signs. Look, we’re keeping this on the DL. Last month we pulled out a floater who was also in the same state as our shop-girl. We don’t want a panic so this goes no further, understood?’
‘Loud and clear, captain. One more question, opium. Any signs of her or your other floater using it?’
She looks at me for a long moment then nods. Very slowly.
‘We aren’t sure,’ she says. ‘Because of water and blood-loss, but Cheery said that there are signs that point in such a direction. Your Vetinari chum not tied up in this is he?’
‘I wouldn’t call Vetinari and I chums, exactly. And no, no. I shouldn’t think so.’
‘If you find out anything-‘
I am tempted to tell her about Dragon and lay everything on the table but I know that as soon as it is out that the cops are to raid Dragon will have that den empty and there won’t be a single piece of evidence left. He’s smart and has had hundreds, if not thousands, of years of experience.
‘I promise,’ I say as we finish up. ‘If I get anything firm evidence wise, you’ll be the first to hear.'
She accepts this with some doubt but I can’t blame her for it. She’s too good a cop to trust a gumshoe.
'Oh,' I call after her. 'You know a man named Moist? Moist von Lipwig?'
Angua shakes her head. Never heard of him. Why? I give her a description and this gives her pause.
'Maybe.'
'As a favour?' I ask.
She sighs. 'Fine, as a favour I'll take a look. Anything else to go on?' I give her his girl's name and this registers although Angua doesn't say as much. She promises to have some note sent around this evening. I say send them to Sybil then. I might not be in. The smog is brown as I make my way back to the office and I wonder if I should be dressing up or not for the evening but as I only own a suit and a half Vetinari will have to take me as he finds me.
'An odd way to become friends with a man,' I say to Sybil who has returned to do some light research.
'He's an odd fellow so this does not surprise me,' she replies. 'And Havelock's a dear once you get to know him.'
'I keep hearing this but I've yet to see it.'
Sybil laughs at me and leaves with a wave of perfume behind her. Off to fend off her aunt's latest set of suitors. I wish her luck. She replies that she'll be fine, apparently I'm the one in need of it.