Thud

The office was downstairs, in the stone-walled basement. It looked quite cosy. Crates and sacks were piled up against one wall. There wasn't much food in deep caves, after all; the simple life for dwarfs down below happened because of quite complex lives for a lot of dwarfs above. Helmclever looked like little more than a servant, making sure that his masters were fed, although he probably thought the job was rather grander than that. A curtain in the corner probably concealed a bed; dwarfs did not go in for dainty living.

A desk was covered in paperwork. Beside it, on a small table, was an octagonal board covered in little playing pieces. Vimes sighed. He hated games. They made the world look too simple.

`Oh, do you play at all, commander?' said Helmclever, with the hungry look of a true enthusiast. Vimes knew the type, too. Show polite interest, and you'd be there all night.

`Lord Vetinari does. It's never interested me,' said Vimes.[1]

[1] Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could've been a republic in a dozen moves.

'Helmclever's not a common dwarf name. You're not related to the Helmclevers in Tallow Lane, are you?'

He'd meant it as no more than a bit of non-controversial icebreaking, but he might as well have cursed. Helmclever looked down and mumbled: `Er, yes ... but to a ... grag, even a novice, all of dwarfdom is his ... family. It would not be ... really not be...e faltered into silence and then some other part of his brain took over. He looked up brightly. `Some coffee, perhaps? I shall fetch some.

Vimes opened his mouth to say no, but didn't. Dwarfs made good coffee, and there was a smell of it wafting from the next room. Besides, the nervousness radiating off Helmclever suggested he'd been drinking a lot of it today. No harm in encouraging him to have more. It was something he told his officers: people got worried around coppers, if the officer knew his stuff, and jittery people gave too much away.

While the dwarf was gone he took in more of the room, and his eye spotted the words The Koom Valley Codex on the spine of a book, half concealed in the paperwork.

That bloody valley again, with added weirdness this time. Actually, Sybil had bought a copy, along with most of the reading population of the city, and had dragged him along to look at that poor man's wretched picture in the Royal Art Museum. A painting with secrets? Oh yes? And how come some mad young human artist a hundred years ago knew the secret of a battle fought thousands of years before? Sybil said that the book claimed he'd found something on the battlefield but it was haunted and voices drove him to believe he was a chicken. Or something.

When the mugs were brought in, with just a little spilled on Helmclever's desk because his hand was shaking, Vimes said: `I must see Grag Hamcrusher, sir.'

`I'm sorry, that is not possible.'

The answer came out flat and level, as if the dwarf had been

practising. But there was a flicker in his eyes, and Vimes glanced up at a very large grille in the wall.

At this point, Angua gave a little cough. Okay, thought Vimes, someone's listening.

`Mr Helm ... clever,' he said, `I have reason to suppose that a serious crime has been committed on Ankh-Morpork soil. He added: `That is to say, under it. But Ankh-Morpork's, anyway.'

Once again, Helmclever's strange calm gave him away. There was a hunted look in his eyes. `I am sorry to hear it. How may I assist you to solve it?'

Oh well, thought Vimes, I did say I don't play games.

`By showing me the dead body you have downstairs,' he said.

He was obscenely pleased at the way Helmclever deflated. Time

to press home ... He took out his badge.

`My authority, Mr Helmclever. I will search this place. I would prefer to do so with your permission.'

The dwarf was trembling, with fear or anxiety or, probably, both. `You will invade our premises? You cannot! Dwarf law-'

`This is Ankh-Morpork,' said Vimes. `All the way to the top, all the way to the bottom. Invasion is not the issue. Are you really telling me I cannot search a basement? Now take me to Grag Hamcrusher or whoever is in charge! Now!'

'I - I refuse your request!'

`It wasn't a request!'

And now we reach our own little Koom Valley, Vimes thought, as he stared into Helmclever's eyes. No backing down. We both think we're right. But he's wrong!

A movement made him glance down. Helmclever's trembling finger had teased out the spilled coffee into a circle. As Vimes stared, the dwarf's fingers drew two lines across the circle. He looked back up into eyes bulging with anger, fear ... and just a hint of something else ...

`Ah. Commander Vimes, is it?' said a figure in the doorway.