Part Two - A Shady Character

Nearly two decades later.

Winter had descended on Ankh-Morpork and held the city ruthlessly in its icy grip.  People went about their daily business, just as they had done for many days before, and just as they would for many days afterwards, providing they weren’t mugged, murdered, shanghaied, or any of the other unfortunate ends that an Ankh-Morpork citizen could come to by just daring to breathe in and out.

However, something strange was going on in the city.  Stranger than usual, at least.  The frigid weather had not only iced over the normally turgid River Ankh �" as well as every water butt within the city walls �" but the freezing conditions seemed to have been putting off almost all forms of criminal activity.  That is not to say that Ankh-Morpork was crime-free; that was an oxymoron.  The very notion of Ankh-Morpork being crime-free would rob it of its very…Ankh-Morporkness.  Even if (and when) the city was to be burned to ash people would steal the ash.  Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the city’s premier greasy entrepreneur, would probably market it as a facial scrub.  At a discount, of course, and that would be cutting his own throat.

Seemingly, it was just too cold to commit crime.

To most civic-minded people, this would be fantastic news, but to one seasoned veteran of law enforcement it was doing his crust in.

‘Bored!’ shouted Commander Samuel Vimes, to the Multiverse at large.

‘Sir?’  Captain Carrot Ironfondersson, Dwarf by birth and copper by nature, poked his head into his superior’s office, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

‘I’m bored, Carrot, godsdamnit!’  Vimes was sitting back in his office chair, his sandaled feet resting on his desk.  ‘I haven’t had so little to do since I was in the Night Watch, but at least then I could be drunk while doing it!’

Carrot stepped into Vimes’ office and stood to attention.  It did get on Vimes’ nerves a little the way Carrot was always �" and he did mean always �" on duty one thousand percent, but it irritated him more because Carrot’s outstanding devotion to duty just put into sharp relief how old and tired some of the more seasoned members of the Watch had become.

He included himself in that thought, and he didn’t like it.

‘It is noticeably quiet out there, Sir,’ said Carrot, as if he was revealing some great mysterious truth.

‘Quiet?’ scoffed Vimes.  ‘A Saturday night in the Plague Pits would be livelier!’  A few moments’ silence passed between the two men.  Carrot coughed politely before speaking again.

‘Um, Sir.  If there’s nothing to do, you could always…go home?’  The look that Vimes shot his Captain made Carrot wish he hadn’t said anything.

‘No,’ said Vimes flatly.  ‘It’s Young Sam’s schooling hours, and if I go home, he’ll want to play, and you know Sam, he’ll get me.  He always does.’  The hard look in Vimes’ face softened for a moment as he thought of his son.  Carrot nodded sympathetically.

‘And besides,’ Vimes continued.  ‘Sybil has a gaggle of those blasted interchangeable Emmas at the house.  I never know which is which, and Sybil always gets on at me to pay more attention.’

More pointed silence between the Commander and his Captain.

‘Ugh!  This is interminable!’ said Vimes, throwing his hands in the air.  ‘I’m going out for a while.  If I’m going to be bored out of my bloody mind I can at least do it with a bacon sandwich in my hand.’

‘Sir,’ said Carrot, saluting.

‘Carrot, you’re in charge until I get back.  If anything interesting happens send someone to find me, do you hear?  If this dry spell goes on much longer, I might just choke myself on that sodding sandwich!’

‘Actually Sir, I have some errands to run myself.  I shall assign Captain Angua to mind the Yard for us.’

‘Whatever,’ said Vimes, as he stood up and took his helmet from the hat stand in the corner.  ‘Just as long as she doesn’t let the place get burned to the ground.  Although, that would give us something to do, at least!’

‘Sir.’

Vimes left Pseudopolis Yard, his thoughts firmly in the realms of bacon.

 

*           *           *

 

Some say the Multiverse is a kind and benevolent force.  Others say it is a cruel and unfeeling monster that cares nothing for the souls within it.

Both are correct.

But what the Multiverse also is, or rather does, is listen.

And, in this instance, it appeared to have been listening to Sir Samuel Vimes.

He had wanted crime.

So, crime was born.

‘Stop, thief!’

Ordinarily, a cry such as this would elicit forty shades of indifference in the thronged streets of Ankh-Morpork, what with thievery being legal within the confines of the Thieves’ Guild, but it was what the crier shouted next that set this act of larceny apart from the everyday pilfering the city was used to:

‘He’s stolen from the Palace!  He’s stolen from the Patrician!’

Heads turned, and attentions were snapped into focus at this second piece of information.  No one stole from the Patrician.  It just wasn’t done.

It was, well, stupid.

Very, very stupid.

Lord Vetinari was not a man to be crossed.  At least not twice.  The opportunity to do it more than once rarely, if ever, came up.  So, to steal from him meant that the perpetrator was either new to the city and did not understand its ways, or they had an extremely pronounced death wish.

Nevertheless, the act had been committed and the culprit was sprinting speedily from the crime scene, his booty stuffed hastily into a small sack that he hugged tight to his body.  Palace guards clanked and puffed after him in a vain attempt to give chase, but to no avail.  The thief was lithe and nimble and moved with impressive speed.  The Palace guards were far more used to standing around all day and not having to move much, so this sudden need to exert themselves was being met with noticeable physical resistance from their paunchy bodies.

The thief skittered around corridors and descended staircases three steps at a time: light of foot and swift of pace.  He shot past expensive-looking tapestries and spindly polished tables that had frail and intricately painted vases standing on them.  Grand portraits looked down importantly at him from the walls as he rocketed by.  Every time he encountered a fresh batch of Palace guards, he ducked down a side corridor or doubled back and found another route, evading capture with ease.         Outside, the two guards stationed on the main Palace doors stamped their feet to keep the feeling in them.  One blew into his hands in a vain attempt to inject some warmth into them, but the frosty climate would not yield.  The two guards got the fright of their lives when one of the Palace’s massive double doors burst open and a skinny, grubby-looking bearded figure shot out of the open doorway and began tearing down the gravel path towards the main gate.

‘Stop him!’ shouted a guard, wheezily, from the Palace’s entrance hall.  The guards on the door exchanged a brief glance and gave chase, the bright plumes on their helmets dancing madly as they pounded along, trying desperately to gain ground on the unknown interloper.

They didn’t stand a chance.

The thief was at the gates before the guards were halfway down the drive.  He leaped impressively towards the wall encircling the Palace grounds, kicked off of the smooth stone and propelled himself to the top of the magnificent wrought iron gates as if it was no effort at all.  He cast a triumphant look back towards the Palace, his breath steaming in the frigid air, and dropped lightly on to the street outside.  Smiling, he knew he was now no longer within the jurisdiction of the Palace guards.  Now he was at the mercy of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

Now the fun would really begin.

‘You there!’  Stop!’

Captain Carrot, who had up until that moment been talking to a shop-keep on the other side of the road to the Palace, called out at the sight of a strange man dropping down from the gates.  He knew that no one went to the Palace unless invited by the Patrician �" whether willingly or not �" and they certainly didn’t leave by climbing the gates.  So, whomever this fellow was he was clearly up to no good.

The thief smiled.

The thief ran.

Carrot bade the shop-keep a very hasty goodbye and gave chase.

The thief bobbed and weaved through the packed streets, dodging people of varying species and the myriad items they were holding, working on, selling, stealing, etc.  Captain Carrot did his best to keep up, his jolly woollen scarf �" a Hogswatch gift from Captain Angua von Überwald �" flapping behind him, and normally Carrot’s best was enough to outstrip any lawbreaker in the city, but this one was different.  Carrot felt like a lumbering slab of jelly compared to this suspect (innocent until proven guilty, Carrot lived and would die by this principle) and after several minutes and a dozen streets and alleys he was getting out of breath.

‘Captain?’

Rounding a corner, flushed and red-faced, Carrot nearly knocked over Commander Vimes, who was just finishing off the bacon sandwich �" including the extra crunchy bits �" he had left the station for.  Wheezing, Carrot pointed a shaking finger in the direction of the thief and managed to breathe the word “stolen.”

That was all that Vimes needed to hear.

He scanned the street ahead of him, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes against the bright winter sun, and caught sight of someone running away very fast.  He looked at his Captain, who was still trying to catch his breath.

‘That one?’ he asked, indicating the retreating individual.

Carrot nodded.

Vimes took off and began the pursuit anew.  As soon as he did, various parts of his body began to protest.  He was certainly not a young man anymore, and the years, combined with the bacon sandwich were making this impromptu bolt through the city streets a less than pleasant affair.  The cold air felt like icy water as he gulped it down, puffing his breath and pounding his arms, giving chase as best he could.

Physically, Vimes’ body was not enjoying itself.

Mentally, though, Vimes was loving every second of it.

To be on the streets, in the thick of it, that’s what real coppering was all about, thought Vimes as he got up to his optimum sprint.  Just him and a lawbreaker, locked in the beautiful chase; in that moment everything else went away.  Vimes’ knees threatened to pop out of his skin, and his chest felt like a smithy’s furnace, even with the air cold as steel, but as he thundered his way through the streets of the city �" of his­ city �" he wouldn’t have traded it for all the bacon sandwiches on the Disc, not even with a lifetime supply of crunchy bits.

This chap was fast, though.

Vimes narrowed his eyes and focussed, keeping the fleeing suspect in his sight.  Whomever he was he was good, perhaps too good.  Even in his youth Vimes wasn’t sure he’d be able to catch this slippery character.  No, if he was going to get the better of this fellow he was going to need to think faster, even if he couldn’t run faster.

But then the thief made a fatal mistake.

He ran into the Shades.

Got you, sunshine.

Despite feeling massively out of breath, Vimes grinned.  He knew the Shades better than the back of his hand �" having been born and raised there �" and the thief entering the oldest part of the oldest city on the Disc was akin to slapping the cuffs on himself.  Vimes slowed to a jog and halted at the entrance to the Shades, scanning the streets before him and making some rapid mental calculations.  He was being watched by a small girl who was sitting on the curb with a basket of pathetic, half-wilted flowers in front of her.  Scrawled on a piece of wood were the words:

 

FLOURS FOR SAIL

 

Vimes looked from the girl to the streets of the Shades �" redolent with long and dark shadows, thanks to the low winter sun �" and then back at the girl.  He started unbuttoning his breastplate.

‘Do me a favour, Miss.  Keep an eye on these, please.’  Vimes laid his breastplate, badge, and helmet on the pavement next to the girl.  The kind of pursuit this had now become called for more manoeuvrability than his full uniform was going to allow.  The girl looked up at Vimes but said nothing.  Vimes fished in the pouch on his belt and tossed the girl an AM Dollar coin.  She caught it, looked at Vimes suspiciously, and bit on the coin, just in case.

‘Good girl,’ said Vimes.

‘Piss off, copper,’ said the girl, in a disarmingly sweet voice.

Vimes smiled at her.

Very good girl, he thought.

‘I’ll be back for those later,’ he said, as he took off into the Shades.  ‘And there’ll be another Dollar in it for you if I don’t have to go down the shonky shop to buy them back.’  The girl stuck two fingers up at Vimes’ back as he disappeared around a corner.  Then, she turned and laid a protective hand on the armour.  The people of the Shades may have mistrusted authority in all its forms, but a Dollar was a Dollar, and being poor certainly didn’t mean being stupid.

Stripped of his policeman’s garb, Vimes breathed in the unmistakable aroma of the Shades and planned his route in his mind.  The Shades was a city within a city, and if Ankh-Morpork was Sam Vimes’ city, then the Shades was his childhood playground.

Okay, my lad, he thought, as he peered around a corner, let’s see how good you really are.

Keeping to the shadows, Vimes moved through the ill-lit streets and dank back alleys that made up the Shades.  Stopping here, he quickly and quietly vaulted over a low wall.  Turning there, he lifted a loose fence panel and slipped on through.  Things hadn’t changed much, if at all, since he was a child, and this played wonderfully into his hands.  Whomever the thief was, Vimes was willing to bet the entire tea kitty that he didn’t know about all the shortcuts and secret ways that the Shades had to offer.

He was right.

As Vimes squeezed between two buildings, he heard running footsteps.  Taking the long way around because of that big sinkhole at the end of Cockbill Street, are you, he thought.

Perfect.

Vimes worked his way quickly out from between the two buildings.  He was standing in a small, filthy courtyard with high walls on every side.  Without hesitation, Vimes moved to one of the walls and hoisted himself up it.  Finding hand and footholds that his body instinctively knew were there, Vimes hauled himself on to the roof of a low building, giving him a view of the whole street below.  He crouched low and squinted into the mass of shadows that made up the street.  As he did so a grin spread across his face.

Got you.

On the other side of the street, behind a rough wooden fence, Vimes could see a hunched figure between two of the uneven posts.  Even with the low sun playing havoc with the shadows, Vimes knew he had his man.  He was clearly resting after such exertion and didn’t realise that he was visible from his hiding place.

Vimes moved stealthily towards the opposite side of the roof and looked down.  There should be �" yes, there it was �" a windowsill that stuck out just enough to get a foothold on.  Swinging his legs over the edge of the roof, Vimes turned himself around and lowered his body down, his toes pointing, ready to feel stone underneath them.  When they found it, he allowed his weight to ease on to the windowsill.  His mind had cut back through the years to when he was a boy traversing these streets.  He remembered that the drop from this windowsill was a fair distance when he was a boy.  Not impossible, but it jolted like a b*****d all the same when his feet used to hit the cobblestones.  Now, though, a full-grown man, he was only a foot or so from the ground when he lowered himself from the windowsill.

The Shades don’t change, Vimes told himself.  Only you change, and all you can do is hope it’s for the better.

Landing softly at street level, Vimes turned to face the fence on the other side of the road.  He crouched instinctively and peered at the fence.  Yes, the thief was still there.  Probably going through his catch.  The thought struck Vimes that he didn’t know what this chap had stolen, but that didn’t matter.  The point was that he had stolen something, and he had run from him.  You didn’t run from the Law unless you were guilty.

Moving low and quiet, Vimes trotted lightly across the street towards the fence, his heart beating hard in his chest.  It felt like an age since he had gotten to chase a criminal, really chase one, and his body and mind tingled with the excitement.  Putting his back against the splintery wood, Vimes held his breath.  His fingers felt for the knothole that he knew was there, the knothole that would allow him to pull back the loose fence panel �" there was one in every fence, and if there wasn’t, you made one �" and surprise…

‘You’re under arrest!’ Vimes shouted, triumphantly, as he tore back the fence panel and darted through, springing out in front of…

Nothing.

Well, not nothing.  Just behind the fence was a wig and a false beard, hung on a scarecrow’s cross.  The tunic the thief had been wearing was draped over the cross as well, making for a poor imitation of the man Vimes felt sure he had cornered.  Anger boiled in the Commander’s stomach as he looked around him.  His body tensed, his fists clenched and ready to fight.  Either he had just walked into a trap, or someone was having a bloody good laugh at his expense.

Or both.

Vimes turned on the spot, scanning the area around him, waiting for an attack that never came.  His ears strained for any sound that might indicate the thief was near, but there was nothing.  Just Vimes’ own breathing that fogged in the chilly air.  A breeze blew and caught the sweat that Vimes realised he was caked in.  He suddenly felt very cold.

Very cold, and very, very angry.

He’d been tricked.  Worse, he’d been tricked in his own backyard.  The streets of the Shades had played witness to Vimes’ formative years and had taught him that to make it in that part of the city, and the city of Ankh-Morpork as a whole, you needed lightning wits and cast-iron nerves.  As he resigned himself to the maddening truth that the thief had gotten away, while making him look like a blundering buffoon in the process, he felt as if he had let the city down.  As if he had let the Law down.

Vimes trudged dispiritedly back to the flower girl, his body now making full use of the time to put in all the complaints that his brain had been too busy to register before.  His legs felt like jelly, his chest was on fire, and his head was swimming.

But at least the girl hadn’t made off with his uniform.

‘Thank you, Miss,’ said Vimes, offering her a weak smile and tossing her the previously promised second Dollar.  True to form, the girl bit this one, too.  Vimes sullenly pulled his armour back on and was about to make his way back to Pseudopolis Yard when the flower girl stopped him.

‘Oi,’ she said, with the trademark absence of respect that all denizens of the Shades carried in the face of the Watch.  ‘He left this for you.’

‘He?  Who?’  Vimes frowned as the flower girl produced a small white card.  Vimes took it and his pupils narrowed in barely suppressed rage as he read:

 

Better luck next time, Your Grace

 

Vimes swore.

Loudly.

 

*           *           *