Snuff

Brassbound was hopping from one foot to the other. ‘You’d better take care of him right now, commander, he’ll have a trick or two up his sleeve and no mistake!’

Vimes ignored this and carefully patted the young man down, freeing up one short knife, the sort a river rat might carry. He used it to cut a length of rope and tied the man’s hands together behind him. ‘Okay, Mister Stratford, we’re going downstairs. Though if you’d like to dive into the water first I won’t stop you.’

And then the man spoke for the first time. ‘I ain’t Stratford, sir,’ he said, pleading. ‘I’m Squeezy McIntyre. That’s Stratford behind you with the crossbow pointing at you, sir.’

The man formerly known as Brassbound gave a chuckle as Vimes turned. ‘Oh my, oh my, the great Commander Vimes! I’ll be damned if you ain’t as dumb as a pile of horseshit! You know the eyes of a killer when you see them, do you? Well, I reckon I’ve killed maybe sixteen people, not including goblins, of course, they don’t count.’

Stratford sighted on Vimes and grinned. ‘Maybe it’s my boyish features, would you say? What kind of bloody fool cares about the goblins, eh? Oh, they say they can talk, but you know how those little buggers can lie!’ The tip of the crossbow drifted back and forwards hypnotically in Stratford’s hands. ‘I’m curious, though. I mean, I don’t like you, and sure as salvation I’m going to shoot you, but do me a favour and tell me what you saw in my eyes, okay?’

Squeezy took the opportunity to hop desperately down the steps just as Vimes said, with a shrug, ‘I saw a goblin girl being murdered. What lies did she tell you? I know the eyes of a murderer, Mister Stratford, oh I surely do, because I’ve looked into eyes like that many times. And if I need reminding, I look into my shaving mirror. Oh, yes, I recognize your eyes and I’m interested to see what you’re going to do next, Mister Stratford. Though now I come to think about it, maybe it wasn’t sensible of me to give you that crossbow. Maybe I really am stupid, because I’m offering you the opportunity to surrender to me here and now and I’m doing it only once.’

Stratford stared with his mouth open and then said, ‘Hell, commander, I’ve got the drop on you, and you want me to surrender to you? Sorry, commander, but I’ll see you again in hell!’

There was a space in the world for the crossbow to sing when the grinning Stratford pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the sound that it made approximated to the word thunk. He stared at it.

‘I took the safety pin out and stamped it into the dung,’ said Vimes. ‘You can’t fire it without the pin! Now, I expect you have a couple of knives about your person, and so if you fancy cutting your way out past me, then I’d be happy to accommodate you, although I’ll tell you that firstly you won’t succeed, and secondly, if you manage to get past a boy who grew up on the streets of Ankh-Morpork there’s a man down there with a punch that can fell an elephant, and if you knife him you’ll just make him more annoyed—’

The surge this time was bigger than ever, and Vimes banged his head on the cabin’s roof before coming down again in front of Stratford and kicking him smartly in the official police officer method and also the groin.

‘Oh, come on, Mister Stratford, don’t you have a reputation to keep up? Feared killer? You should spend some time in the city, my lad, and I’ll make certain you do.’ Stratford fell backwards and Vimes continued, ‘And then you’ll hang, as is right and proper, but don’t worry – Mister Trooper does a nifty noose and they say it hardly hurts at all. Tell you what, just to get the adrenalin pumping, Mister Stratford, imagine I’m the goblin girl. She begged for her life, Mister Stratford, remember that? I do! And so do you. You fell down at the first surge, Mister Stratford. River rats know what to do. You didn’t, although I must say you’ve covered it very well. Whoops!’

This was because Stratford had indeed tried his hand with a knife. Vimes twisted his wrist and flung the blade down the stairs just as the glass in the wheelhouse smashed and a branch longer than Vimes ploughed across the room, shedding leaves and dragging torrential rain and darkness behind it.

Both the lamps had gone out and, as it turned out, so had Stratford, hopefully through a shattered window, possibly to his death, but Vimes wasn’t sure. He would have preferred definitely. But there was no time to fret about him, because now came another surge, and water poured in through the glassless windows.

Vimes jerked open the little gate to the pilot’s deck and found Mr Sillitoe struggling up out of the pile of storm-washed debris. He was moaning, ‘I’ve lost count, I’ve lost count!’

Vimes pulled him upwards and helped him into his big chair, where he banged on the arms in frustration. ‘And now I can’t see a damned thing in all this murk! Can’t count, can’t see, can’t steer! Won’t survive!’

‘I can see, Mister Sillitoe,’ said Vimes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You can?’