‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Do you know what “policeman” means?’
Angua shrugged. ‘No.’
‘It means “man of the polis”. That’s an old word for city.’
‘Yes?’
‘I read it in a book. Man of the city.’
She glanced sideways at him again. His face glowed in the light of a torch on the street corner, but it had some inner glow of its own.
He’s proud. She remembered the oath.
Proud of being in the damn Watch, for gods’ sake—
‘Why did you join?’ he said.
‘Me? Oh, I … I like to eat meals and sleep indoors. Anyway, there isn’t that much choice, is there? It was that or become … hah … a seamstress.’[10]
‘And you’re not very good at sewing?’
Angua’s sharp glance saw nothing but honest innocence in his face.
‘Yes,’ she said, giving up, ‘that’s right. And then I saw this poster. “The City Watche Needs Men! Be A Man In The City Watche!” So I thought I’d give it a go. After all, I’d only have something to gain.’
She waited to see if he’d fail to pick this one up, too. He did.
‘Sergeant Colon wrote the notice,’ said Carrot. ‘He’s a fairly direct thinker.’
He sniffed.
‘Can you smell something?’ he said. ‘Smells like … a bit like someone’s thrown away an old privy carpet?’
‘Oh, thank you very much,’ said a voice very low down, somewhere in the darkness. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you very much. That’s very wossname of you. Old privy carpet. Oh, yes.’
‘Can’t smell anything,’ Angua lied.
‘Liar,’ said the voice.
‘Or hear anything.’
Captain Vimes’ boots told him he was in Scoone Avenue. His feet were doing the walking of their own volition; his mind was somewhere else. In fact, some of it was dissolving gently in Jimkin Bearhugger’s finest nectar.
If only they hadn’t been so damn polite! There were a number of things he’d seen in his life which he’d always try, without success, to forget. Up until now he would have put, at the top of the list, looking at the tonsils of a giant dragon as it drew the breath intended to turn him into a small pile of impure charcoal. He still woke up sweating at the memory of the little pilot light. But he dreaded now that it was going to be replaced by the recollection of all those impassive dwarf faces, watching him politely, and the feeling that his words were dropping into a deep pit.
After all, what could he say? ‘Sorry he’s dead — and that’s official. We’re putting our worst men on the case’?
The late Bjorn Hammerhock’s house had been full of dwarfs — silent, owlish, polite dwarfs. The news had got around. He wasn’t telling anyone anything they didn’t know. Many of them were holding weapons. Mr Stronginthearm was there. Captain Vimes had talked to him before about his speeches on the subject of the need for grinding all trolls in little bits and using them to make roads. But the dwarf wasn’t saying anything now. He was just looking smug. There was an air of quiet, polite menace, that said: We’ll listen to you. Then we’ll do what we decide to do.
He hadn’t even been sure which one was Mrs Hammerhock. They all looked alike to him. When she was introduced — helmeted, bearded — he’d got polite, noncommittal answers. No, she’d locked his workshop and seemed to have mislaid the key. Thank you.
He’d tried to indicate as subtly as possible that a wholesale march on Quarry Lane would be frowned upon by the guard (probably from a vantage point at a safe distance) but hadn’t the face to spell it out. He couldn’t say: don’t take matters into your own hands for the guard are mightily in pursuit of the wrong-doer, because he didn’t have a clue where to start. Had your husband any enemies? Yes, someone put a huge great hole in him, but apart from that, did he have any enemies?
So he’d extracted himself with as much dignity as possible, which wasn’t very much, and after a battle with himself which he’d lost, he’d picked up half a bottle of Bearhugger’s Old Persnickety and wandered into the night.
Carrot and Angua reached the end of Gleam Street.
‘Where are you staying?’ said Carrot.
‘Just down there.’ She pointed.
‘Elm Street? Not Mrs Cake’s?’
‘Yes. Why not? I just wanted a clean place, reasonably priced. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Well … I mean, I’ve nothing against Mrs Cake, a lovely woman, one of the best … but … well … you must have noticed …’
‘Noticed what?’
‘Well … she’s not very … you know … choosy.’
‘Sorry. I’m still not with you.’
‘You must have seen some of the other guests? I mean, doesn’t Reg Shoe still have lodgings there?’
‘Oh,’ said Angua, ‘you mean the zombie.’
‘And there’s a banshee in the attic.’
‘Mr Ixolite. Yes.’
‘And there’s old Mrs Drull.’
‘The ghoul. But she’s retired. She does children’s party catering now.’
‘I mean, doesn’t it strike you the place is a bit odd?’
‘But the rates are reasonable and the beds are clean.’
‘I shouldn’t think anyone ever sleeps in them.’
‘All right! I had to take what I could get!’
‘Sorry. I know how it is. I was like that myself when I first arrived here. But my advice is to move out as soon as it’s polite and find somewhere … well … more suitable for a young lady, if you know what I mean.’
‘Not really. Mr Shoe even tried to help me upstairs with my stuff. Mind you, I had to help him upstairs with his arms afterwards. Bits fall off him all the time, poor soul.’
‘But they’re not really … our kind of people,’ said Carrot wretchedly. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I mean … dwarfs? Some of my best friends are dwarfs. My parents are dwarfs. Trolls? No problem at all with trolls. Salt of the earth. Literally. Wonderful chaps under all that crust. But … undead … I just wish they’d go back to where they came from, that’s all.’
‘Most of them came from round here.’
‘I just don’t like ’em. Sorry.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ said Angua, coldly. She paused at the dark entrance of an alley.
‘Right. Right,’ said Carrot. ‘Um. When shall I see you again?’
‘Tomorrow. We’re in the same job, yes?’
‘But maybe when we’re off duty we could take a—’
‘Got to go!’
Angua turned and ran. The moon’s halo was already visible over the rooftops of Unseen University.
‘Okay. Well. Right. Tomorrow, then,’ Carrot called after her.
Angua could feel the world spinning as she stumbled through the shadows. She shouldn’t have left it so long!
She stumbled out into a cross-street with a few people in it and managed to make it to an alley mouth, pawing at her clothes …
She was seen by Bundo Prung, recently expelled from the Thieves’ Guild for unnecessary enthusiasm and conduct unbecoming in a mugger, and a desperate man. An isolated woman in a dark alley was just about what he felt he could manage.
He glanced around, and followed her in. Silence followed, for about five seconds. Then Bundo emerged, very fast, and didn’t stop running until he reached the docks, where a boat was leaving on the tide. He ran up the gangplank just before it was pulled up, and became a seaman, and died three years later when an armadillo fell on his head in a far-off country, and in all that time never said what he’d seen. But he did scream a bit whenever he saw a dog.
10
A survey by the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants of tradespeople in the dock areas of Morpork found 987 women who gave their profession as ‘seamstress’. Oh … and two needles.