When it comes to street crime Ankh-Morpork has many candidates for the top ten streets. The Shades has its own special category. Such streets come with obvious, if somewhat clichéd warning signals. Lack of lighting, narrowness, abundant hiding places for someone to lurk discretely* and a general lack of witnesses (or at least people who didn't know how to remain quiet).
* From which they can carry out any range of indiscretions. Anyone who tells you that life isn't ironic clearly has limited experience in actual living, ironically.
Fred Colon and Nobby Nobby knew these streets well, which was why they avoided them wherever possible. Upholding the law was one thing, but it helped if you could do it while not having to eat through a straw. The streets they were currently patrolling had none of these features. They were wide and well cobbled. There were no dark corners, just tastefully lit ones and certainly no piles of garbage to hide behind. Admittedly they weren't necessarily bustling but you felt that if anything happened here someone would see it and report it, or possibly take their own action. It's not that crime didn't occur here, in fact a strong case could be made that the very worst of crimes and criminals grew up on these streets, it's just that it wasn't seemly to be observed in the act. Wealth, when it comes down to it, is a form of cosmetic. It does a remarkable job of hiding blemishes.
'You know, Nobby, I think I could get used to this undercover detectoring,' said Fred.
Nobby looked around cautiously. Nobby may not have completed first class before being expelled, but he was a survivor and had received his schooling on the streets - of which he had a PhD (Pretty Handy Dash). One of the very early pavement lessons he had learned was not to inform those who may not have your best interests at heart that you're planning on double-crossing them.
'Keep it down a bit, Sarge,' he whispered ferociously. 'Remember what Cheery said about discretion.'
Fred nodded. Nobby was right. You know how limited your intellectual resources are when it turns out that Nobby Nobbs is the brains of the outfit.
One of the distinct differences between the streets of their usual beat and those they were currently perambulating was a total absence of vendor wares in stalls on the pavement. Shopping, like crime in this part of the city, was done behind closed doors. This was a significant disappointment to Fred and Nobby, who considered mumping a legitimate part of weekly earnings.
'Sarge, isn't that that posh restaurant up ahead?' said Nobby, cutting across their lamentations.
'Yeah, the Caviar something-or-other.'
'Funny, isn't it, that anybody though eating caviar was a good idea.'
'What do you mean, Nobby?' Fred Colon was not averse to spreading caviar on a thick slice of bread and eating it with visible gusto whenever he went to fancy events, just to show how sophisticated he was. It was a rare occurrence, of course, and, in light of the above image, becoming increasingly rarer.
'With them being fish eggs and all.'
'What?' Colon barked. One of the common features of belonging to the human race is the ability to casually apply double standards. Someone who, of his own volition, had eaten Dibbler's pies, which contain more body parts than even their erstwhile owners knew they possessed, was horrified at the idea that he consumed, in great amounts, eggs laid by fish. Fred knew that the idea of caviar came from foreign places - most likely Quirm. They did and ate anything there, at least according to his neighbours back home who, to a man or woman, had never visited the place. Questions about how they knew all this about Quirm would be countered by the statement 'You'll never get me going there with all their foreign ideas.' This defence is infallible because, like wagon trains under attack, it is forms a perfect circle.
'What's the problem Fred?' asked Nobby with what would normally be called a sly grin, but on Nobby's face it was hard to tell. 'You knew that about caviar didn't you?'
Fred bit back the words of horror, laced with xenophobia, that were striving to get out. The deep-down Fred knew that his uniform only granted a certain amount of respect and that he had used it up years ago. You had to earn it now. And, if he'd had any idea what the word meant, he'd have said ignorance was the antithesis of respect.
'Course I did Nobby,' he scoffed. 'I'm a world traveller, I am.'
'It's just you looked like someone who'd swallered a hedgehog.'
That part of Fred's brain that still got some sort of exercise panicked. Were hedgehogs a delicacy as well? He'd bet people somewhere thought so, but was that because eating hedgehog was a lot more pleasant than eating dirt? When in doubt, distract.
'Looks like they've got new greeters,' said Fred in the desperate tones of the truly ignorant. 'Wonder what happened to the usual ones.'
'Your Commander did,' rumbled a voice from the alley they were passing. This part of town did, in point of fact, have alleys because even the wealthy create rubbish - especially the wealthy. But it's a polished clean rubbish and anyone attempt to lurk in one is likely to end up as a bulky but brief part of the waste disposal process.
'Hi Frank,' said Colon. 'How's things?'
'Been a bit busy if late, what with all these new-foe rich people with land finking they can just stroll into the place. Flat out putting them straight. But it could be worse.'
'Why?'
'I coulda been the ones who were straightened out.'
Nobby and Fred gave sympathetic shudders. No one even wanted to be invited into Frank's alley.
'Now lads,' said Frank with a smile that spread across his face like high-speed continental drift, 'come down here. There's someone you need to meet.'
Sometimes you can hear a pin drop. This time it was the sound of two bricks. There are less stressful weight-loss programs than sheer terror, but none quicker.
'Please come in,' said a voice from the doorway, and a hand beckoned from the shadows. Nobby and Fred were experts at not being where trouble was, so much so that there were academic research papers written on what was called the Colon-Nobbs Effect. This theory expounded that we are all born with the power of prescience but in most people it is so weak it only presents as a feeling of unease. The theory then goes on to say that some rare individuals have evolved the ability to subconsciously avoid danger. This would be the first time either Fred or Nobby would be at the forefront of evolution and makes you wonder if the whole evolving thing is as good as it's cracked up to be.
Right now, they knew they were exactly where they shouldn't be and that there wasn't any way out. They'd had no problems with playing at corruptible policeman. It was an easy stretch and one they'd been born for, but theirs had always been low-level corruption. The sort that borders on being harmless, in the scheme of things. Now they were realising for the first time that they'd only ever swum in the shallows and that they'd just paddled out into the deeper waters where larger creatures, with teeth and a boundless appetite, waited and watched.
Behind them Frank took a step forward. It was not a large step, but it summed up the situation they were in to a tee. Fred and Nobby were caught between a rock and a hard place.
'Fred, what are we going to do?' whispered Nobby.
Colon, drew a deep breath before he replied. 'The way I see it Nobby, if we step through that door we're walking into trouble, but here's the important thing. That trouble will happen sometime in the future, but if we don't walk through the door there won't be a future to worry about.'
It was logic like this that had helped keep Colon alive for so long and why he had risen to the rank of sergeant. This is the same sort of logic that has also lead to some of the worst tragedies in history and explains, in its own way, why Colon had never risen above sergeant.
Colon and Nobby stepped forward into the darkness.
xx
Gaspode was a survivor. It was his greatest, possibly only, skill (other than talking, of course). Sometimes he gave into moments of moral weakness and put others first but it was never a dilemma when only his survival was at stake. Like right now. He was being followed and had been since he'd left Francesco. Every now and again he'd catch the sound of claws clicking away on the pavement but whenever he turned around there was no sign of his pursuer. Oh, sure, the streets were still bustling away, but it was in a Gaspode-non-specific way.
He was pretty certain it wasn't just one tracker either. There were glimpses down alleyways and not-quite-random yaps that suggested he was far from alone in the city. Knowing that his pursuers almost certainly, at least in a broad sense, belonged to the canine family did little to ease his concerns. After all, he was a dog and he knew what they were capable of, especially in packs. At least one of his futures involved ending up as little more than a widdle on the pavement.
He turned left down a broad street then broke into a dash across the path of an oncoming cart, leaving a brief trail of startled people and one horse behind him. Before the shouts had reached his ears he scurried through a courtyard, down a narrow passageway, bursting out onto a parallel street. As a seasoned escapee Gaspode knew that time spent looking to see if you were being followed was time you were giving away. If he was the hero of some kind of novel then he'd make a remarkable escape by sheer good luck taking random directional choices that miraculously led him to some alcove he could hid in while the bad dogs ran past. Gaspode doubted he'd ever feature as the hero of any novel unless the word tragedy (or possibly black comedy) was involved. Besides, his legs were too short for leaping from rooftop to rooftop.
Of course, it didn't help that his pursuers didn't have to rely on just sight or that his own personal scent had a signature large enough to be smelt from nearby asteroids. What he needed right now was anonymity. He said a silent prayer to whatever god looked over canines. There had to be one in a world that had more gods than tenements had cockroaches. Not that his innate cynicism left much room for faith - and was it a coincidence that dog was the reverse of god? Besides, even if there was a god watching over dogs, which side would they be supporting? Couldn't those pursuing him be praying just as fervently - maybe even more so?
Now he was genuinely lost in a foreign city. Every decision he made was based on the pure roll of the dice, metaphorically speaking, of course. Paws suck when it comes to dice-rolling, which is why you never see dogs at the craps table in casinos. Since blind chance was involved, Gaspode added a prayer to the Lady, safe in the knowledge that she was famed for never being swayed by such things. If the Lady smiled on you it was because she wanted to. And if she didn't ... well, something else might descend on you and the craps table could live up to its name.
He turned another corner and there below him lay the harbour, sparkling in the afternoon light. He paused to take his bearings and in that moment the sea breeze lifted up to greet him, bringing with it ... salvation.
Leaving his pursuers grasping at thick air* he sprang down the hill, his nose dragging him forward like Love Potion No.9. Without looking back he knew dogs were emerging from side streets to create a strange kind of dentourage**. It would be a close-run thing and Gaspode knew that most gods just liked a show. The difference between a narrow escape and a tragic miss may well come down to viewer preference on the day.
* No air remains thin once Gaspode has passed through it.
** Like entourage but with teeth.
The street levelled out and Gaspode skidded around a corner in a fashion that would have made cartoon animators on another world proud of their efforts. And there it was before him - the canine nasal equivalent of Aladdin's Cave - the seafood markets. They'd have as much chance of tracking him through there as following a fart in a tornado. Not that he planned to give them the opportunity. He scurried into the markets, where even his own personalised odour quietly skunk off in defeat.
There are two things that are important to know about seafood markets. The first is that they are not places for the faint-hearted. They are an assault on the senses. The aroma of a fish market is well documented, but any frequenter of the markets will tell you that it doesn't end there. Stall after stall confronts the customer with every possible shaped creature from under the waves - and when it comes to genetic creativity the sea delivers in spades. Quite literally, especially when it comes to shovel-nosed sharks. It doesn't follow any conventions. Tired of having no legs? Fine, evolve a mess of tentacles. Bones annoying you? Then stick them on the outside. Over being smooth skinned? Why not give spikes a go? Wish you didn't have to be on everyone other fish's menu? Grow some teeth. It's overwhelming.
The second thing about seafood markets is the noise. The ocean happily transmits sound over great distances - seafood market do the reverse. They condense it into a great, writhing chaos of hawkers' cries, clattered deliveries and customers more than willing to argue the outrageous price of octopi these days.
The third* thing to know about seafood markets is that dogs are not welcome. Oh sure, they're more welcome than cats, and rampaging bulls for that matter, but that doesn't mean they're greeted with open arms. Gaspode had to weave a tortuous path through the markets to avoid a kicking or capture. If he was caught he wouldn't be surprised if he turned up on one of the tables. Dogfish indeed.
* So the numbers are a little dodgy - but surely it doesn't call for a Spanish Inquisition?
Eventually he found himself on the market's fringe, standing outside a derelict boat house. Right now what he needed most was a chance to catch his breath. It had definitely been one of those days. The door was hanging off its hinges and he trotted into the building's enfolding darkness. Now for just a little less insanity.
Or not.
'He has come, as foretold,' said a voice from the shadows.
xx
The apartment Joseph had found for them was more than satisfactory. It had a grand view of the Via Nostromo, two bedrooms and, most importantly, no other occupants. Though there were signs that perhaps this wasn't a traditional rental apartment. Vimes was impressed with how quickly Petrosini had found them the place.
'Looks like whoever normally lives here might have just gone off for a holiday,' said Vimes. 'I wonder how Joseph knew that?'
Sybil shrugged. 'Remember that old saying about Brindisi - "the pasta is foreign country. They do things differently there."'
'We call it Ahroma BnB,' said Joseph as he opened the windows, 'though don't expect any breakfast. It stands for BednBuggeroff. Brindisians have a rather disinterested view when it comes to paying taxes*, and this approach suits them to the ground.'
* As is the case in just about every society, which doesn't prevent residents from complaining about the state of their roads and how the government needs to spend more on them.
'Just perfect, thanks Joseph,' said Sybil with the sort of boundless energy and positivity that is generally far more effective and powerful than most people realise – too many adopt the arsehole approach to the world. Sam knew that he had an inner arsehole, but the difference between his and the other arseholes he liked to kick, was that he would use his to defend people like Sybil. The end justifies the means, as it were. Though Sam would happily disagree with that statement too. He staunchly believed, based on a lifetime of cynical experience, that cliches had a lot to answer for.
'This is where we part company, Sam,' continued Sybil. 'You can stake out your mistress, but I'm going to the opera. La Hussiata is playing and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Angua, would you like to come with me?'
Angua had many strengths but watching opera wasn't among them. Singers who hit high notes that drove dogs crazy. Singers, for that matter, who could qualify for the phrase, there's good eating on one of those. And being packed in, like sheep, with an audience who also looked like they'd never been short of a crust, or a whole loaf for that matter, was a nightmare. It bought the wolf out in her and no one wanted to see that.
Sybil watched all of this play out across Angua's face and came to the rescue, as she always did. 'Silly of me to suggest it', she said. 'Sam will definitely need you on the stake-out, won't you Sam?'
Sam nodded. Code of the Watch. Come to the aid of an officer in need. Maybe the world would return the favour some time. He'd never understood opera. Just say the words and give me some sort of clue as to what's happening next. Don't, for the gods' sake, sing them, especially not in a foreign language or in a voice that throws bats off their flight paths. Besides, he once had Sybil translate an opera too him and the most notable feature of the plot, was the total absence of one that made any sense at all. Opera was one taste Sam was confident he would never acquire. He was happy enough for it to happen to other people, just not in his lounge room (which was far too small anyway. Operas needed lounge rooms the size of small kingdoms or it wasn't worth the effort).
'Will you come with me Senor Petrosini?' she asked.
'I would be happy to accompany you, Lady Sybil, and please call me Joseph, or even just plain Joe.'
'And Sybil is just fine in return, though if you try Syb you may find yourself in rocky shoals.'
Joe smiled. 'Agreed. And we're in luck. Senor Enrico Basilica is playing the role of Giorgio.'
Sybil clapped her hands in schoolgirl-like delight. 'Oh, Sam, can you believe it?', she said breathlessly.
'No,' he replied in all honesty. 'Are we talking about a building or a person here? Though I do seem to recall watching a gentleman in an opera last year that could have qualified for both.'
'That's him.'
'And just out of curiosity, what's the plot to this opera? Let me guess. Boy meets girl and they fall in love, but it's complicated. One of them is actually really sick. They end up being torn apart by circumstance, one blames the other for something and it all ends with them finding each other again, and then someone dies?'
Sybil sighed. 'You just don't get the whole experience of the opera do you? You're always looking for the plot.'
'I am a copper. Looking for plots is in the job description.'
'Yes, but opera is different,' she continued, succinctly summarising centuries of debate into just four words and threatening the livelihoods of academics and arts critics across the Disc. 'Anyway,' Sybil said, using the word like a guillotine, 'Joe and I need to hurry, and you have a mistress to pursue. I'm sure we're both in for fun-filled evenings.'
