The Spirits' Call
Disclaimer: The quote isn't mine and Sam Vimes isn't mine and neither are any of the other characters, i.e. I'm not Terry Pratchett. Bweh.
'He'd tried it once. He couldn't quite remember why now, since in those days the only spirits he generally drank hard the subtlety of a mallet to the inner ear. He must have found the money somehow. Just a sniff of it had been like Hogswatchnight. Just a sniff…'
--- Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett.
No. Think like that and he'd end up in the mess he'd been in before he'd met Sybil. Anyway, how had it got into his desk drawer in the first place? Fred Colon and Carrot certainly wouldn't let something like that happen. And he hadn't put it in… had he? No, it hadn't been there yesterday.
Some bastard was playing with him, and Sam Vimes was fed up with being played with.
He turned over the bottle before he changed his mind. A whole bottle of Bearhugger's best on the bloody carpet! Someone was going to pay. And the glugging sound the whisky made as it left the bottle made him want to cry.
What had he poured it out for? He needed a drink…
But he couldn't have one, could he?
"Bloody whisky," he growled, opening the top desk drawer, this time.
Yes, there it was.
Arsenic? But arsenic was green, wasn't it? Mind you, he wasn't prepared to bet his life on it. He pocketed the 'evidence'.
Vimes snuck down the stairs, taking care to avoid Cheery – the only other watchman in the building – and into the canteen. It was in its usual state.
He pulled a small bag out of another pocket and filled it with grubby sugar. It looked amazingly like the other white powder, apart from the Nobby's cigarette butts seemed to have found an alternative home to that special place behind his ear. He fished them out and regarded the packet of 'arsenic'.
And then he crept back into his office and quietly shut the door.
Vimes sat down at his desk and wondered what he looked like when he was dead drunk. It was not, strangely enough, a question he'd ever asked himself.
Presumably, he just kind of slumped forward, like this.
It would have to do. Cheery was hammering on the door.
"Sir?" he- she called. "Sir? There's some people here, want to speak to an officer. Sir?"
Vimes didn't answer in the desperate hope that she would go away if he ignored her. To his surprise, she did.
There was silence for some time, and Vimes was about to have a look at some paperwork (he was really desperate) when he heard Carrot's voice coming up the stairs.
Hurriedly, he slumped forward again.
The door opened and Vimes could tell be the horrified gasps that his act was convincing enough. It helped, of course, that people saw what they wanted to see.
That was Downey's voice. Anger filled Vimes as he recognised the other voices. Mrs Palm, Boggis… all guild leaders. Important people. But it would be them, wouldn't it?
The smell of whisky teased him. A bottle of bloody Bearhugger's on the damn carpet! It was torture; worse than anything the Unmentionables could ever have dreamed up. Probably. People shouldn't have to do this kind of thing!
Carrot shook him, and he had to suppress a sudden urge to laugh. That was ridiculous.
And Downey was reaching into the top drawer…
The next few minutes were a bit of a blur to Vimes. The lack of sleep and smell of whisky were getting to him. Downey catapulted backwards.
Vimes tried not to laugh again, and opened his eyes.
He was enjoying himself!
AN: I know, it's not very well-written and it's a desperate but hopeless attempt to imitate Terry Pratchett, but still. It was a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing.
It helps if you know the part of Feet of Clay that this fic's referring to, of course. It's pages 280-1 and 306 onwards in the paperback. I don't know about the hardback.