‘Could I have a copy for my mam?’ he said.
‘Smile, please …’ said Otto.
‘I am smilin’.’
‘Stop smiling, please.’
Click. WHOOMPH.
‘Aaarghaarghaargh …’
A screaming vampire is always the centre of attention. William slipped into the Oblong Office.
Just inside the door was a chalk outline. In coloured chalk. It must have been done by Corporal Nobbs, because he was the only person who would add a pipe and draw in some flowers and clouds.
There was also a stink of peppermint.
There was a chair, knocked over.
There was a basket, kicked upside down in the corner of the room.
There was a short, evil-looking metal arrow sticking into the floor at an angle; it had a City Watch label tied to it now.
There was a dwarf. He— no, William corrected himself, on seeing the heavy leather skirt and the slight raised heels to the iron boots — she was lying down on her stomach, picking at something on the floor with a pair of tweezers. It looked like a smashed jar.
She glanced up. ‘Are you new? Where’s your uniform?’ she said.
‘Well, er, I, er …’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not a watchman, are you? Does Mister Vimes know you’re here?’
The way of the truthful-by-nature is as a bicycle race in a pair of sandpaper underpants, but William clung to an indisputable fact.
‘I spoke to him just now,’ he said.
But the dwarf wasn’t Sergeant Detritus, and certainly not Corporal Nobbs.
‘And he said you could come in here?’ she demanded.
‘Not exactly said—’
The dwarf walked across and swiftly opened the door. ‘Then get—’
‘Ah, a vonderful framing effect!’ said Otto, who’d been on the other side of the door.
Click!
William shut his eyes.
WHOOMPH.
‘… oohhbuggerrrrr …’
This time William caught the little piece of paper before it hit the ground.
The dwarf stood open-mouthed. Then she closed her mouth. Then she opened it again to say: ‘What the hell just happened?’
‘I suppose you could call it a sort of industrial injury,’ said William. ‘Hang on, I think I’ve still got a piece of dog food somewhere. Honestly, there’s got to be a better way than this …’
He unwrapped the meat from a grubby piece of newspaper and gingerly dropped it on to the heap.
The ash fountained and Otto arose, blinking.
‘How vas that? Vun more? This time viz the obscurograph?’ he said. He was already reaching for his bag.
‘Get out of here right now!’ said the dwarf.
‘Oh, please’ — William glanced at the dwarf’s shoulder — ‘Corporal, let him do his job. Give him a chance, eh? He’s a Black Ribboner, after all …’ Behind the watchman Otto took an ugly, newt-like creature out of its jar.
‘Do you want me to arrest the pair of you? You’re interfering with the scene of a crime!’
‘What crime, would you say?’ said William, flipping open his notebook.
‘Out, the pair of—’
‘Boo,’ said Otto softly.
The land eel must have been quite tense already. In response to thousands of years of evolution in a high magical environment it discharged a night-time’s worth of darkness all at once. It filled the room for a moment, sheer solid black laced with traceries of blue and violet. Again for a moment William thought he could feel it wash through him in a flood. Then light flowed back, like chilly water after a pebble has been dropped in the lake.
The corporal glared at Otto. ‘That was dark light, wasn’t it?’
‘Ah, you too are from Uberwald—’ Otto began happily.
‘Yes, and I did not expect to see that here! Get out!’
They hurried past the startled Corporal Nobbs, down the wide stairs and out into the frosty air of the courtyard.
‘Is there something you ought to be telling me, Otto?’ said William. ‘She seemed extremely angry when you took that second picture.’
‘Vell, it’s a little hard to explain,’ said the vampire awkwardly.
‘It’s not harmful, is it?’
‘Oh, no, zere are no physical effects vhatsoever—’
‘Or mental effects?’ said William, who had spun words too often to miss such a carefully misleading statement.
‘Perhaps zis is not zer time …’
‘That’s true. Tell me about it later. Before you try it again, okay?’
William’s head buzzed as he ran along Filigree Street. Barely an hour ago he’d been agonizing over what stupid letters to put in the newspaper and the world had seemed more or less normal. Now it had been turned upside down. Lord Vetinari was supposed to have tried to kill someone, and that didn’t make sense, if only because the person he had tried to kill was apparently still alive. He’d been trying to get away with a load of money, too, and that didn’t make sense either. Oh, it wasn’t hard to imagine a person embezzling money and attacking someone, but if you mentally inserted someone like the Patrician into the picture it all fell apart. And what about the peppermint? The room had reeked of it.
There were a lot more questions. The look in the corporal’s eye as she’d chased him out of the office suggested firmly to William that he was unlikely to get any more answers from the Watch.
And looming up in his mind was the gaunt shape of the press. Somehow he was going to have to make a coherent story about all this, and he’d have to do it now …
The happy figure of Mr Wintler greeted him as he strode into the press room.
‘What do you think of this funny marrow, eh, Mr de Worde?’
‘I suggest you stuff it, Mr Wintler,’ said William, pushing past.
‘Just as you say, sir, that’s just what my lady wife said too.’
‘I’m sorry, but he insisted on waiting for you,’ Sacharissa whispered as William sat down. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure …’ said William, staring hard at his notes.
‘Who’s been killed?’
‘Er, no one … I think …’
‘That’s a mercy, then.’ Sacharissa looked down at the papers covering her desk.
‘I’m afraid we’ve had five other people in here with humorous vegetables,’ she said.
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. They weren’t all that funny, to tell the truth.’
‘Oh.’
‘No, they mainly looked like … um, you know.’
‘Oh … what?’
‘You know,’ she said, beginning to go red. ‘A man’s … um, you know.’
‘Oh.’
‘Not even very much like, um, you know, too. I mean, you had to want to see a … um, you know … there, if you understand me.’
William hoped that no one was making notes about this conversation. ‘Oh,’ he said.
‘But I took their names and addresses, just in case,’ said Sacharissa. ‘I thought it might be worth it if we’re short of stuff.’
‘We’re never going to be that short,’ said William quickly.
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I’m positive.’
‘You may be right,’ she said, looking at the mess of paper on her desk. ‘It’s been very busy in here while you were out. People have been queueing up with all sorts of news. Things that are going to happen, lost dogs, things they want to sell—’
‘That’s advertising,’ said William, trying to concentrate on his notes. ‘If they want it in the paper they have to pay.’