Vimes sat with his head in his hand, trying to order all the information that had gradually filtered back to him from his officers in his head. Carrot had reported to Vetinari: apparently the only response had been 'Hmm' and a steepling of fingers. Cheery and Igor were still working on the body with Ahmed and Vimes hadn't /dared/ to go down into the cellar to check on their work. He wanted a few more nights of sleep filled with pleasant dreams rather than nightmares featuring charred bodies... although mostly at the moment he had to admit he didn't have much opportunity to dream, being wakened every three hours or so by his son.
What else? Ridcully had listened to his warnings and was going to allow Vimes to post a twenty-four-hour guard outside the only entrance to the room storing the Octavo. Detritus had volunteered for the first watch, and Fred Colon was already drawing up a rota. The scent of burned flesh had apparently managed to make any trails impossible for Angua to follow.
Vimes supposed he could go home. It was, after all, still officially his day off.
Night was once more falling over the city as Vimes set off for home. Stars were rising as the heat gradually drained from the world. In his garden the night-time pollen tickled Vimes's nose again. He sneezed twice in quick succession, waking several dragons who whimpered and yammered as he walked past them, ignoring them.
It wasn't all that late, but he was unsurprised to find Sybil in bed. Sleep had to be grabbed while it could be got nowadays. Vimes, used to having his sleep disrupted at any hour of the day or night was coping slightly better with the constant disturbances.
He yawned widely, rubbing tired eyes as he undressed and headed for the bathroom. Meeting his own eyes in the mirror he was surprised to see dark circles under them.
Perhaps not that much better, then, all things considered. He brushed his teeth fiercely; watching the froth form dazedly, mind elsewhere.
He slid into bed and fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
He awoke with a yelp, dragged from dreams filled with the crackling of merry flames and flickering orange lights. Sam was crying. Again. Sybil was blinking awake. She felt Vimes's callused palm against her cheek.
"Don't," Vimes said, voice cracked with sleep, "He's just attention seeking."
"How do you know?" his wife muttered into her pillow.
Vimes shrugged, swinging his legs out of bed and moving over to Sam's cot. He picked the baby up, squinting in the half light to look at him and check nothing was wrong. At a few days old there was no more similarity between father and son than the shock of brown hair shared by both of them; identical in colour (at least on top). Young Sam Vimes had been born with an inordinate amount of straight brown hair, now sticking up in every direction as he had been wriggling around as he cried. Vimes cradled the baby rather expertly; a few days of nervous awkwardness had now evaporated. He jiggled Sam up and down, hushing him. He stopped crying.
Vimes smiled through his exhaustion at his success. However, Sam showed no signs of going back to sleep.
Sam Vimes senior was now moving into territory he had never before explored. Amusing a baby. As the youngest child in his family he had no experience with looking after younger siblings. Never in his career as a Watchman had he ever had more than a passing encounter with children under about the age of four.
He decided to take Sam out of the bedroom in order to let Sybil get some much needed sleep. He wandered around the house, talking quietly to Sam. With little else to tell him about he talked about his work. Crimes, criminals, rooftop chases. Sam remained quiet, blue eyes wide as if he was listening until eventually he fell asleep, to Vimes's gratification.
He laid him back into his cot and very gratefully slumped back into bed.
It only seemed like five minutes since he had closed his eyes when Willikins was knocking on the door telling him that Carrot was asking for him. Sybil and Sam were nowhere to be seen. He dressed hurriedly and dashed down the stairs.
An amazingly clean shaven and bright eyed Carrot was waiting in the hall. "Good morning sir. I trust you slept well?"
Vimes gave Carrot a bleary stare. No doubt the captain thought his statement was perfectly innocent. But you /could/ take it another way. "Just. Don't," Vimes managed, waving a finger.
"Er, all quiet last night sir in the heat. Ahmed, Cheery and Igor have made a break through on the body."
"Oh?" said Vimes, still trying to focus on the captain.
"Yes sir. A man. Still trying to trace any relatives."
"Where was he found again?" croaked Vimes.
"Silver Street sir."
"Someone's room, was it?"
"Not sure sir. Things looked pretty untouched. Couple of footprints in the dust, but scuffed up and not that good anyway. And the body. That was about it."
Vimes thought about it for a moment as he tied on his neckerchief, buckling on breastplate and screwing the helmet onto his head. "Right. I'll see you at the Yard in ten minutes," he said.
Carrot nodded. "Yessir!"
"Sybil!" Vimes called as soon as the door closed.
A faint reply from the library sent Vimes walking in that direction. Sybil looked up from a table where she was writing something. "Back to work, eh?" she said with a smile.
"Yeah," he said.
"Good luck, I guess. Will you be wanting lunch? Dinner?"
"Wanting yes, being around to eat it, probably no. But I /swear/ I'll be back by six." /Doubt I'll be able to stay awake for much longer,/ he added mentally.
"Okay. Dinner then."
He gave her a kiss, apologising for his stubble and headed back out to work.
*
"The body was dumped," Vimes said, striding into the charge room.
"What sir?" said Carrot, standing to attention.
"The body. In Silver Street. It was dumped. Murdered elsewhere. We're looking in the wrong place. I want a discreet presence around the back of the university. Get Angua on it. Does she know who she's tracking?"
"She does sir," replied Angua, detaching herself from where she was leaning against the wall. "Good to see you back sir," she said, saluting smartly, "On it now."
Vimes nodded to himself as if checking something off a mental check list.
"Where's Ahmed?"
"Here, your grace."
"I want you to come with me. There's something you need to see."
With that Vimes strode out again. Ahmed exchanged a glance with Carrot and followed the Commander, barely able to keep pace with him.
Vimes lead him all the way to the back of the Unseen University, to the abandoned houses where so much magic was dumped no one dared live in the crumbling houses. The Watch hardly ever set foot here. Even criminals avoided it; it was far too dangerous.
But the kids came here.
From Cockbill Street and other places below the Shades.
Vimes knew his way around the streets here. A long time ago he'd sat on some of these steps and wished with his brother for a puppy. Anything with meat on would have done, they /had/ been starving. For a moment in the growing heat of the dawning day Vimes felt a sensation akin to solemn sadness at the passing of days much simpler than the ones he lived now.
"What is it you want me to see, your grace?" asked Ahmed.
"What was Sybil talking about earlier?" Vimes asked, stalling for time.
Ahmed smiled thinly. "I was Lord Rust's... uh, servant I guess. We called them scags. I had to make his toast in the mornings, iron his clothes... I believe I asked Lady Sybil for a dance with him. She 'went out' with Rust."
"I know," Vimes replied. "It didn't last."
"I'm not surprised," Ahmed laughed, "I never could see Sybil with any of those prefects and noblemen. She was far too..."
"Yeah. I know," Vimes replied, with just a bite of warning in his voice.
Ahmed wisely changed the subject. "Why are you taking me here, your grace?"
"I know how Omar is going to try and get into the room with the Octavo," Vimes said.
"Oh?" said Ahmed.
"He's going to cut through the cellar walls here and break in that way."
There was a brief pause. "Very clever, your grace. I... hadn't thought about that," Ahmed said. "You want to post a guard here?"
"Yes. Angua should already be on the trail of our man Omar. With any luck we'll be able to catch up with the missing girl and prevent the theft." /And I can get home in time for dinner./
"And I can make my arrest and get out of your hair," Ahmed added.
Vimes said nothing in reply as the strode through the empty streets, too tired to even think beyond the movement of his feet. Vimes knew which of the broken-down houses backed directly onto the University. He wasn't very surprised to find the door to it was hanging forlornly on one broken hinge. There was a smell in the air, a vaguely familiar stench that turned the stomach. Vimes pushed the door and it clattered to the cobble; the sound was particularly loud in the quiet street. The two policeman stepped inside.
Vimes had gained a lot of experience in messy crime scenes over his career, and this one looked vaguely familiar. Inside the house it was obvious someone had been squatting in the front rooms. There were rags that might once have been clothes strewn about, bedding in a state of disarray. Far, far worse was the silhouette visible on the wall and the smell of scorched flesh that filled the room.
It was worse than when the dragon came, Vimes told himself. Because then you could at least say: 'It was a dragon.' The idea that a human being could incinerate someone so badly that their outline remained on the wall was horrifying. Hands splayed wide indicated someone in a posture of defence, absolute terror. Vimes half wondered whether he should have checked on the body earlier. He couldn't suppress a terrible curiosity, wondering just how much of it had been /left/.
"Ah. I think it would appear that we have identified exactly where are murder victim came from."
"Wrong place at the wrong time," Vimes said sadly, "He was in Omar's way."
"Get a guard here," Ahmed said.
Vimes nodded. "Wait here until we get back," he said.
Ahmed looked vaguely affronted. "Of course, your grace."
*
Ridcully was waiting in the charge room when Vimes arrived; the Commander jumped with the shock of the unfamiliar.
"Archancellor! This is a surprise," Vimes said.
Ridcully stood up, revealing a younger man seated on one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs behind him. He looked faintly familiar to Vimes. "This is the professor of Cruel and Unusual geography," said the wizard, giving the younger man a small shove.
"Rincewind," said Rincewind, holding out his hand. Vimes shook it.
"The only person to ever break into the room holding the Octavo. I thought you might want to talk to him."
"Uh. Yes. Thanks," Vimes called after the wizard's retreating back. He turned back to Rincewind. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"I was on the Kite with Captain Carrot," Rincewind said.
Vimes nodded in remembrance. Rincewind was taller than Vimes, long-limbed and gangling. He was younger than Vimes too, probably about thirty five, Vimes judged; there was a tickling of grey in his brown hair and beard.
"Hang on one moment," Vimes said. "Fred!"
Fred Colon hurried over at the Commander's call. "Yes sir?"
"Send over two officers to number seventy two, the back of the University. Organise a rota. Oh and Fred? Makes sure they're experienced - I don't want anyone liable to panic, and I need them to be discreet."
Sergeant Colon nodded and hurried away. A moment later Constables Shoe and Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets came out of the canteen, saluted Vimes and followed Ridcully out of the door.
Vimes turned his attention back to Rincewind, who looked particularly nervous; licking dry lips. "Alright sir. If you'd come up to my office, I'd just like to ask you a few questions..."
Rincewind nodded, looking throughly miserable. He didn't have a lot of good experience with Watchmen and Vimes's scowl didn't exactly predict a friendly chat over a cup of tea and some biscuits. More likely a barrage of pointed questions. Rincewind /knew/ that the seven buckets of coal (1) were going to come back to haunt him...
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1. Science of the Discworld II - Rincewind receives seven buckets of coal to his office due to a 'clerical error' the details of which are too lengthy to explain here. Unfortunately, Ridcully found out about them.
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Thanks for all the reviews people! And I am mortified to realise the for years I have been reading Willikins as Wilkins!!! Thanks for letting me know- I can't believe I hadn't noticed... argh!!