Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler was on a sure thing. This was a different sure thing to his lifetime of previous countless 'sure things' that had failed to deliver anything other than an ability to remove himself from the fallout of his 'sure things' faster than it takes a politician to break a promise. But this idea was going to bring home the bacon, and any other pork-related products. Despite being to failure what Leonardo da Quirm was to invention, Dibbler did have the uncanny ability to smell money being made, which was why he was standing at the edge of the new sub-division with $ signs for pupils.
xx
Some might say Maison d'Ankh was exclusive, but this would be hotly disputed by the owner, Chantilly Lace. When it came to wealthy customers Maison d'Ankh was incredibly inclusive. It was the sort of shop where price tags were considered tasteless and, frankly, pointless. If you had to know the price you couldn't afford it. It was the sort of shop that could dedicate an entire wall to one single bottle on a stylised display stand. It was the sort of shop that was not the Watch's sort of shop.
xx
The doorbell chimed and bought Chantilly back from her solid gold day dream of solid gold with what turned out to be a thud.
'Captain Angua,' said the leader of the group as she crossed the floor. 'We'd like to ask you a few questions.'
Perfume shops are sledgehammer experiences for a werewolf and in other circumstances Chantilly might have been struck by the way the officer's nose appeared to be trying to run away from her face were it not for the other two figures that had followed the captain in.
Chantilly had heard about powerful magicians who, using the darkest of arts, could create their own misshapen familiar. The homunculus. She'd never believed it until now. There was one of them standing or, more accurately, hunching, in her shop - though it was hard to imagine the portly figure standing beside the creature was an all-powerful necromancer. She was pretty sure necromancers didn't scratch their buttocks with such unadulterated vigour.
'Cor, would you look at this Sarge,' said the homunculus. 'Talk about posh.'
'Not for the likes of you and me Nobby,' replied the larger one. 'Though it wouldn't half turn Mrs Colon's head if I appeared with a bottle of Eau d'Ankh.'
With that, the two figures walked over to a display of perfumes whose resale value could purchase a staggering number of guilty pleasures. Chantilly followed their passage with a deep premonition of horror.
'Excuse me,' growled the captain, dragging back the shop owner's attention for a moment. 'I was wondering if you could help us with our investigations. We need to know who purchased a bottle of...'
Here the Captain sniffed the air in the shop for a nose-wrinkling moment and then pointed to a small, ink-black bottle. Chantilly turned to look. 'Obsession,' she said. 'But our clients' purchasing records are confidential.'
Even as she said this her eyes were dragged back to the other two figures who had now started picking through the bottles as if they were on a shelf at a grocery store.
'Hey, Sarge, what about this one?' the homunculus was saying. 'Dark Knights. I've never used perfume before,' it continued - a statement so obvious that it slunk away in embarrassment. 'Where do you put it on?'
'Well,' replied Fred Colon, who was only very loosely acquainted with the mysteries of what he would call the boodwhar, but had never let ignorance slow him down in the past, 'the woman places a dab of perfume behind each ear.'
'Seriously? But my ears hardly smell at all,' the imp continued. 'If I was wanting to really get value for money I know exactly where I'd stick it.'
'You know,' said the captain quietly, 'if you just happened to accidentally give us a name we'd all just go away.'
Behind the captain Chantilly could see the one called Nobby demonstrating, with remarkable clarity, the best location for the perfume. Without even looking down she scrawled a name on a piece of paper and thrust it across the counter.
xx
'Jeremy Smyth-Browne', said Vimes. It was a name that reeked of old money. Only the wealthy could afford double-barrelled surnames, especially ones that had invested in 'y's rather than 'i's and an extra 'e'. 'A long line of bankers.' The way Vimes spat out the last word gave the strongest impression that he was using a different letter of the alphabet.
'It looks like we might have to pay a visit to Knob Hill.'
xx
The old banking institutions had grown fat over the years, which tends to lead to a breakout of huge sandstone pillars. And what with the land boom things were looking particularly rosy. But money brings all sorts of creatures to the waterhole.
Tom Knurkle had seen what was happening in the property market and he wanted a piece of it. What he needed now was a loan. You got that from a bank, didn't you? And the most respectable bank in town was the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork.
It is a strange truth that when it comes to impressing with their ability to use people's money wisely, banks have chosen to do this by demonstrating how well they can spend it on themselves. Especially when architecture is involved. The Royal Bank was grand in the sort of way that made you think there should be a grander word than grand. Possibly majestic, but that might have been considered inappropriately gauche. Whilst demonstrating your ability to acquire wealth using a mountain of stone in your marketing campaign was quite acceptable it was vital that you did so in a dignified manner. Restrained unrestraint as it were. The Royal Bank was cut from that cloth, or sandstone in this case.
The stairs leading to the bank were wide enough to sail a schooner up (as mad Lord Minsome proved in the Great Ooze* during the Year of the Persistent Mouse). On either side of them stood statues of the Royal hippos, complete with looks of what the sculptor had hoped captured dignity but more strong suggested severe constipation. The regal nature of these statues was somewhat undermined by the fact that they had been designed in bronze and over the years locals had polished certain parts of the hippo's anatomy until they glowed. Small things amuse small minds, though not, in this case, that small.
* The River Ankh doesn't flood - it couldn't if it tried, but it's damn good at oozing.
At the end of the stairs stood the bank itself. Another homage to death by sandstone. Massive slab after massive slab, stacked one of top of the other, gave the impression that the designers had looked at the pyramids of Djelibeybi and said to themselves 'Well, it's a start, but let's ditch the triangles and go for something squarer'. The roof that lay on top, large enough to be called a kingdom in the Ramtops, seemed to be a mile away. Which was handy because the builders had clearly acquired some very large columns and it least it gave the columns something to do.
Tom drew a determined breath and was just about to head up the steps when a figure lounging nearby stood up and beckoned with purpose. 'Looking to buy some land, but you don't have the money?' the stranger asked.
Tom nodded.
'And you were about to ask this bank to lend you that money at exorbitant rates?' he continued.
'Maybe,' Tom replied.
'Well, it's lucky for you that I just happened to catch you first.'
The stranger handed Tom a card which read:
Dibbler and Associates
Investment Advisors to the Welathy
'What's an investment advisor? And who are your associates?' Tom asked but by then it was too late. Dibbler had already managed to wrap an arm around his shoulder. Dibbler's arm-wraps had the same death-lock grip as the jaws of a mongoose.
'Great questions, kid. Great questions,' said Dibbler as he drew Tom down a side alley. 'You want access to quick money and my associates, a newly formed lending association that doesn't need to mess with financial red tape, have got everything you need. And you don't even need to pay me. That's all sorted by the associates. Everyone's a winner.'
... for a loose definition of everyone, and winning for that matter.
xx
All is darkness. Not the sort of darkness that precedes the light, but the deep darkness that implies that whoever is experiencing it is in some kind of bother.
It was lucky then that he was a dwarf and darkness was no stranger. There's a reason dwarfs are not noted for their sense of humour and witty repartee. When you're miles underground with the weight of the world above you in a darkness that has never seen light you tend to take most things a little more seriously. But he was in a spot of bother.
xx
The greatest total concentration of sandstone in Ankh Morpork, of course, sat on Knob Hill. Mansion after mansion was built of the stuff of ancient ocean floors. And like the material they were made from, the homes told any visitor that the money they were carved from was quite definitely Old. Each one surrounded by gardens so large that they could have straddled time zones. These weren't just homes, they were homages. They certainly demanded respect and awe.
'Bugger this for a game of soldiers,' Vimes said as he ground his cigar into the raked footpath, 'let's get this over with.'
He turned to Cheery and Angua as they strode up to the entrance. 'Remember, your job is to see, hear ... and smell ... all the things that I'm not meant to. The rolled eyes behind my back, the nervous flatulence when we're discussing something, and preferably the accidental glance towards the secret passageway that leads to the victim's hidden bedroom.'
The term body language was yet to be coined in Ankh Morpork but the Watch already spoke it fluently and were the city's leading experts in it (with the possible exception of certain ladies of negotiable affection that fulfilled an important civic duty for the agreed price).
There was a large and regal knocker on the front door which demanded use. Vimes ignored it and rapped on the door with his night stick, leaving a small but satisfying dent. All over the city and throughout the years Vimes had left his imprint in different fashions. Marking his territory. Metaphorical leg cocking. It was his way of saying 'This city is mine.'
A few minutes later they were standing in a large room awaiting 'his lordship's pleasure' - whatever that implied. There was a range of options available to the nobility, some of which didn't extend the pleasure to anyone else's involvement in the activity. Vimes knew these rooms well. They were big enough to remind you that the owner was Somebody but small enough (in the scheme of the mansion) to let the visitor know they were a Nobody. The door opened on the far side of the chamber and in strode Lord Wendell Smyth-Browne.
'What the deuce do you lot want? I'm incredibly busy at the moment and this is damned inconvenient,' he blustered.
'We've come on a rather delicate matter sir,' said Vimes. 'I was wondering if Lady Smyth-Browne might wish to join us.'
Lord Wendell glared at Vimes. 'My wife left this family some years ago and I don't need you to remind me of that fact Commander.'
'Right. My apologies. Well, in that case, Lord Wendell, I need to talk to you about your son Jeremy.'
'Haven't seen that idiot for months,' snapped Wendell. 'What's he done this time?'
Vimes calmly held Lord Wendell's glare. No matter how obnoxious the person was this was always one of the worst parts of the job.
'I'm afraid, sir, that I have some very bad news concerning Jeremy.'
Vimes watched the large man collapse down to his actual size in a heartbeat when he told him of Jeremy's death. There is no grief like that of a parent. Sometime later as they were walking down the driveway again, having obtained Jeremy's last known address, Vimes asked 'So, what did you find out?'
'He really was heartbroken by the death of his son', said Cheery, 'but there was something else there. Almost a sort of relief.'
'Thought so,' nodded Vimes, 'Jeremy was obviously not the model son. Sounded like he was caught up in the wrong kind of financial dealings, whatever that means. It's hard to know what these sort of people...' here he waved an arm to encompass all of Knob Hill, 'would class as wrong, when it comes to money. Anything else?'
'Someone was watching it all,' said Angua. 'They were behind one of the panels. I could smell them.'
Vimes nodded again. 'And Wendell knew they were there didn't he?'
The box was starting to fill up with jigsaw pieces. The problem was there were no edge bits and it was all blue sky.
xx
Nearly the entire glorious diversity of the animal kingdom stays well away from predators, for the obvious reasons. But evolution is nothing else if not an explorer of niches. Think of the bird that picks food from the teeth of crocodile. Now think of Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler.
Dibbler was nearly run off his feet, and these were feet used to running. He now had a dozen clients who used his financial services, just showing how accurate the saying 'having more money than sense' was proving to be. Right now, though, what he really wanted his feet to do was turn him around and walk him out of the room he was standing in.
There is a whole school of thought in interior design based around making the visitor feel welcomed. It features warm or vibrant colours, soft lines, curves, furniture to relax in and probably pot plants. Whoever had designed this room had clearly been thrown out of that school, possibly in kindergarten. The room did have the traditional walls and ceilings, which was always a good start, but things went downhill from there. The window, which was a technical description only, was covered by a blind, the floor was bare and the walls were painted in a soul-sapping grey. There was a pot plant. A zombie fern. Evolution in the Disc had managed to achieve with this species what other worlds would have to await the invention of plastic to replicate. The room was a sanitised version of Hell.
In the middle was a desk so clean of any form of paperwork that it suggested the owner was not only on some sort of spectrum but right out at the edge where maps sometime use the term 'Here be monsters.' Behind the desk sat Mr Grey. Mr Grey had been looking down at a ledger open in front of him and then raised his eyes, windows to the abacus of his soul, and locked them onto Dibbler.
'Not the best records, Mr Dibbler,' he said. 'Not the best at all. What, for example, is this brown stain?' he continued, pointing at the ledger.
'Pie gravy, sir,' Dibbler replied promptly. 'Happened while I was giving a new client a pie.'
'And this claim for medical expenses?'
'Happened shortly after the client finished his pie, sir. Random bout of gastric ... very random. Just trying to keep the clients happy, sir.'
Mr Grey fixed Dibbler with his gaze in much the same way a collector uses pins on butterflies.
'Mr Dibbler, you are possibly the most questionable person I have ever worked with and, believe me, that is saying something.'
'But,' he continued after a pause, 'you do get results and, as you know, our masters are definitely results-driven. Of course, should your performance slide they know how to 'drive' other things as well. And where to drive them.'
Dibbler gulped and nodded. His was a world of fine margins. Mostly about when to get in and, more importantly, when to get out. Then he felt a spark of empathy and this was such a novel experience that he blew on it out of sheer curiosity.
'Mr Grey,' he said cautiously, 'you know all these people who we're helping to get into property ... what happens to them if something goes wrong with the market?'
The man in the suit and bow tie did not even look up from the ledger. 'That would be the least of your concerns.'
And that was that. For now.
xx
Jeremy had lived in a modest apartment, not that Vimes knew what an immodest apartment was meant to look like. Maybe one that wears its studs on the outside. And it was probably normal in some aspects but he was pretty sure that most abodes didn't have numbers and graphs drawn all over the walls of every room.
He needed Carrot. Not that he'd have had any idea what all the drawing meant - but he'd have known the neighbours and found out more about Jeremy in ten minutes than Vimes might in a week. Carrot took an interest in people. He spent time with them. And he listened and remembered. This, quite possibly, made him unique.
'So, what have we got? Any handy clues lying around? Any messages on notepads that were written so hard you can read the imprint on the page below after it was torn out?'
Cheery shook her head. 'I'll analyse what I can but nothing stands out here. I get the impression he didn't get out much.'
Vimes nodded. He'd seen enough rooms that had the same atmosphere over the years. Gods, he'd lived in one himself for long enough. Mind you, it was a bit pointless and tasteless to tell Jeremy to get a life (thoughAnkh Morpork's active undead community would happily argue otherwise).
'Dat's arifmatic,' said Corporal Detritus, helpfully. 'I seen it before.'
Vimes liked having trolls in the Watch. They added grunt and it was amazing how much more persuasive he could be in extracting information when Detritus was standing beside him. He was even a sharp thinker by troll standards, but that's the thing about standards. It's what you're measuring against.
'What on the Disc caused a bachelor who liked numbers to end dead? Something doesn't add up.'
'Yes it does,' said the troll. 'Right there.' Detritus pointed to a section of the wall. 'Dere's your answer.'
Not for the last time Vimes was reminded that life is full of surprises and that standards are slippery buggers. Detritus was right. There was an equals sign, a mathematical dead giveaway. These weren't just numbers they were a formula.
'Bingley-bingley-beep.'
Vimes groaned and took this Dis-Organiser out of his pocket.
'What is it,' he said to the imp that had poked its head out from device.
'You know, manners don't cost anything,' it said*. 'I've half a mind just not to bother tell you about your appointments.'
* Unless you attend Madam Snootville's Classes in Etiquette where manners can charge like a wounded bull.
Vimes sighed. He wasn't a nasty person, except to specific individuals who got what they deserved, of course. It was just that he never had much time for calendars or technology and a device that combined both was always going to be on a hiding to nothing.
'All right,' he said, less gruffly, 'what's the appointment please, imp.'
'Thank you,' said the imp, 'happy to be of assistance. You have an appointment in 15 minutes with the Patrician.' The imp paused, and then added, 'the name's Ortant by the way.*'
* It's a little known fact that imps have a long and well-respected naming tradition. Ortant's family included his sister Ossible, his mother Lausable and his father Robable. Imps pretty much keep this to themselves.
'How did that appointment get in my calendar?' Vimes asked.
'It's a new feature. Each morning when all of us imps are making coffee in the work kitchen we swap appointments made by our owners. We call it sinking.'
'Right. Detritus come with me. Cheery, see what else you can find. I'm going to be running late.'
The Patrician was not one to look kindly on those late for appointments. As far as he was concerned the past tense of sink was definitely sunk.
xx
The Patrician was staring out the window when a breathless version of Sam Vimes entered his office. Even Detritus was puffing.
'Ah, Captain,' he said over his shoulder, 'I do hope I didn't cause you to run, inordinately.'
That was the thing with the Patrician. He used words that were personal and hard to nail down. Vimes was pretty sure the Patrician's understanding of what inordinately meant was different to his. Probably different to the rest of the Disc.
'Ankh Heights,' the Patrician continued. 'Where dreams and ambitions are constructed by the hour. So voracious that it draws in timber from distant forests and stone from the unsuspecting hills, like a maelstrom.
'And now they say it has swept up our economy as well. They call it a housing boom. That this is all part of the wonders of a free market. Tell me, Vimes, have you ever heard of a market that was free?'
Vimes stayed silent. The best thing to do with a rhetorical question was to stay well out of its way.
'And upriver from the city, emerging from the soil, we can see the mansions of those that profit from such a boom. It was the rich soil there that gave birth to our city, you know. Now it has given birth to a new richness. The suburb of Pellucidar. Beneath that loam are great beds of sandstone, laid down when times moved in treacle years. A subterranean world of endless caverns. Do you think these new captains of the housing industry truly know what lies under their feet?'
'And an economy reliant on endless growth,' he continued. 'I wonder if economists have thought that one through?' There was a silence that Vimes wisely chose not to fill. After a moment the Patrician continued. 'Of course, all these developers expect the city to help them out with better roads and so on. Which we are happy to provide, for a small sum for each building. This has been received with the same level of enthusiasm as they delivered their demands. Apparently they want something for nothing so they can sell their somethings for considerable more than nothing. People are so predictable you can set your clocks by them.'
The Patrician gave a dismissive shrug and turned from the window. 'So, tell me Commander, what crime has caught your attention today?'
A real question at last. 'Investigating the death of Jeremy Smyth-Browne, sir. Murdered in the Shades.'
'A murder in the Shades is no more remarkable than the sun rising, these days. So, why is this one different?'
'Well, sir, you have to wonder what someone from Knob Hill was doing in the Shades in the first place.'
The Patrician held his gaze and the silence stretched. That was the thing about the Patrician's questions. They were very hard to satisfy. Vimes gave in. 'And when we visited his apartment there were numbers all over the wall.'
'Dey weren't just numbers either, dey were mafematics,' rumbled Detritus.
The Patrician turned to the troll and for the briefest moment Vimes thought he saw a hint of surprise on his face. Of all the emotions he suspected the Patrician didn't have, surprise would have been at the top of Vimes's tree.
'Could you elucidate on that, Corporal Detritus?' the Patrician asked.
'No, sir,' replied Detritus carefully. 'My mother would never forgive me.'
'Ah,' said the Patrician, making the necessary mental adjustment when talking to Detritus, 'she sounds Ike a woman of strong convictions.'
'Yes, sir, but she done her time for those.'
Vimes was struggling not to laugh, because laughing at the Patrician didn't improve the quality of one's life. 'Can you tell the Patrician more about the numbers,' he said.
'Dem? Dey're a formula to calculate somefing. Not sure what. Der was a lot of calculus involved and dat's not always my strong suit. I'm more into imaginary numbers. You need Graphite, for dat - de best mafs troll in der business.'
'Yes,' replied the Patrician, savouring the novelty of discovering something new, 'I think I would like to talk to Graphite. Have him meet me here.'
'Her, sir,' replied the troll. 'De female trolls are always the best mafematicians.'
The Patrician nodded. 'Assumptions make an ass out of you and me,' he said exhibiting a rare smile.
'I fink it would be better if you went to her, sir,' said Detritus, pushing into the clinically dangerous realm of telling the Patrician what to do. It's possible that others have tried this option before, it's just there is no evidence, left.
'You see,' continued the troll exhibiting all the appreciation of conversational dynamics that come from a species whose ancestors grew from stone, 'Graphite is quite sedimentary.'
'You mean she comes from stone laid down in oceans aeons ago?' said the Patrician in a puzzled tone. Puzzlement did not come naturally to him.
'Not sure about dos Ians sir. I mean that she doesn't get out much. You know, sits around,' the troll continued patiently.
The Patrician nodded, slowly building up his mental Detritus-English dictionary.
'Capital then,' he said. 'Come back this afternoon Corporal and we'll go on an expedition. Make sure you get a copy of the numbers.'
He turned back to Vimes, who was still processing everything he'd just seen and heard.
'What's that saying of yours, Commander? Ah, yes. Follow the money. Right now there's so much of it washing around that you could almost say Ankh Morpork was a giant laundry. It might help your investigation to spend some time talking to the common man.'
'You mean Fred Colon, sir?'
'It's hard to find someone more common,' replied the Patrician. 'Thank you for your time gentlemen.'
And that was that. The Patrician used Thank You in the same way that some establishments used security guards.
Just as Vimes reached the door the Patrician spoke again. 'It seems unusual that Captain Carrot isn't accompanying you today.'
'He's on leave, visiting his parents,' Vimes answered.
'Oh, is he now?' the Patrician said softly.
The door had closed behind him before the Patrician's final words sunk in. 'Bugger,' he shouted and broke into a run.
