Chapter Eleven

In which Carrot is the Good Cop, sort of, and the trap is ostensibly set

It was seven o' clock in the morning, the sun was shining in open defiance of the date on the calendar, the birds were tweeting(a), the smog was twisting upwards and weaving pretty paisley patterns, and a few of the good citizens of the city were venturing out into the streets and the many, many bad ones returning home for a good day's sleep. On the north side of the river, three dark figures whose jobs were to keep the latter away from the former and one dark figure who looked more than a trifle bewildered were hurrying through the narrow, twisting lanes.

"What did he mean by that?" Sally hissed, as she and Angua hurried to catch up with the Captain, who was striding ahead and propelling Jamie forward at the same time. They'd left fairly quickly after Carrot had made his ominous pronouncement, although they had had time to make absolutely sure that no one in the building knew where anybody of a Meserolean or Louisaish disposition was first.

"What?" said the werewolf, distractedly; she was watching Carrot intently.

"We ought to hurry, he said. Does he know something?"

"I couldn't say."

Which wasn't 'I don't know', Sally reflected, and then, because she was technically immortal, said so.

To her secret relief, Angua gave her an amused look. "You've been working with Mister Vimes for too long, Constable."

"And?"

"Alright then, I don't know. Trust me on this," said the sergeant. She rolled her eyes and sped up, but Sally was a vampire and not about to let anyone, even a werewolf, lead the way.

Besides Carrot.

An aerial observer with a penchant for clacks logarithms might have commented on the nice binary effect as the pair swung back and forth in the order of lead. Alas, any message translated from their sequence would have been tragically short, since they stopped at the Yard five minutes later and, once inside, went straight down to the cells. And since, carrot was, as everyone knew, a kind and understanding soul, they passed the heavy, padlocked door outlined in glowing blue light that lead to Igor's domain by and instead entered an empty cell farther down the hall.

Still, the sight of the bare little stone room(b) seemed to snap the boy out of the trance he had apparently been walking in. He jerked away from Captain Carrot and looked rather pale. "Am I under arrest?"

"Not... exactly, sir," said Carrot, carefully. "You're assisting us with our inquiries."

"We'd like to ask you some questions," Angua translated briskly. "So-"

"-sit down. You might want to find a book, too," Sally finished. Angua glared at her. She grinned. Carrot looked blankly from one undead female to the other before shaking his head and turning back to Jamie.

"Sir. Can you tell us what happened on the night of the ball?"

The boy hesitated, and then started on what Sally recognized as the same account he'd given when she'd asked, with added stuttering. She listened long enough to verify that he was actually reciting, word for word, what he had last time before stepping in.

"That's enough of that, kid."

He stared at her. "Huh?"

Both her superior officers were also looking at her inquisitively. She sighed, and explained,

"It's obvious that he's lying. He's repeating everything he told me. Does that suggest anything to you? Because to me it looks like he -"

"- memorized his speech? Yes, I see," Angua cut in, probably by way of revenge for Sally's earlier interruption. "Well, Mr. James? Speak up."

"I'm, er, not..." he stuttered, giving the vampire a nervous glance, "...not lying. Honest."

"Very convincing."

"I'm not!"

"Do you think we're stupid, sir?"

He goggled at the smiling Angua for a while, and then seemed, all at once, to sag. He was very good at it. His entire frame drooped.

"No, ma'am," he mumbled.

"Good lad," said Carrot brightly from where he was sitting on the one piece of furniture in the cell, a cot, and watching. "You can trust us."

Jamie, though only twelve, was intelligent and had had rather more experience with the outside world than most children thanks to Madam. He shot Carrot an incredulous look.

"It wasn't my fault," he began. "Louisa and that horrible fellow made me - I didn't want to lie to you."

Sally opened her mouth to interrupt, but Angua shushed her, eyes on the kid.

"I was mostly telling the truth, anyway. I did hear someone getting into the coach. I did think it was Louisa. She wasn't there when we got out. But... but..." he started to tremble, almost imperceptibly, though nothing related to human fear is imperceptible to werewolves and vampires, "...there was this yellow mist coming out of the window, near the beginning. Lots of it. And it sort of coiled off all in a bunch, like."

Sally went very, very still. The other woman(c)glanced at her briefly before resuming her vigil.

"And I didn't mention what happened afterwards, either," he mumbled.

"Do tell," said Angua, calmly.

"That was when Louisa came to my room."

"Alone?"

"No. That man was with her."

"Perhaps now would be the appropriate time to tell us who that man was," she observed.

"I don't know!"

"What you saw, then."

Jamie hesitated. "He was... tall. And skinny, like, really skinny. And he had dark hair, and a... a cape, I guess, I mean it looked sort of like a cape..."

"Wings," Sally murmured. "Some of the broods from the mountainous regions have them even in human form." Angua nodded, thoughtfully.

"I see," she said, addressing Jamie. "And what did they say to you?"

"Louisa asked me if I'd seen anything happen in the coach. I said that I hadn't and what was going on and she said that nothing was going on, her friend had just been worried that I'd gotten the wrong impression. I said of what? And she said don't worry. But then she made me tell her what I thought had happened and she said I mustn't mention the bats or she would have to be stern, and then the... the other one opened his hand and I saw things glinting..."

Sally exchanged a meaningful look with Angua. Angua exchanged a meaningful look with Sally. Sally exchanged a second, more meaningful look with Angua. Carrot gave them both a meaningful look. It was extremely meaningful; it meant 'stop giving each other meaningful looks.'

"Hmm," he said. Jamie looked petrified. "And then?"

"They left."

There was an empty, inviting, silence. Angua and Sally were so apprehensive they forgot to give each other meaningful looks.

"And... then they came again. Last night. They said they were going away today, and - and now Madam's gone..."

Great, globby tears welled up in his wide blue eyes, suddenly. This did not create the reaction he might have expected; Angua pursed her lip in what could have been skeptical disapproval, Sally knew her face was quite impassive - as if a comforting smile would help in her case - and Carrot only said, "Cheer up, there's a good boy."

When it became apparent that Jamie wasn't about to say anything more that was particularly coherent - especially not under the gaze of three watchmen - the Captain stood up and said, in a final sort of way, "Thank you. You've been very helpful. If you could just wait here, sir, until we can tell you more."

He closed his notebook and offered the tear-stained boy a bright smile and a handkerchief, which said boy ignored. "So I am under arrest," he said, accusingly.

"Not at all," said Carrot. "You're in protective custody."

"What's the difference?"

"I don't know. The Laws and Ordinances of the Twin Cities of Ankh and Morpork didn't say."

"...what?"

"Never mind," said Angua, cutting the Captain off. "Come on, Carrot."

All three watchmen left.

After a while, a heavy yellow mist poured through the small, barred window. Jamie stared at it, wide-eyed and frightened.

It solidified into something dark and man-shaped, but seemed insubstantial - ashy - where the shafts of sunlight hit it.

It said something.

"I told them!" said Jamie, hurriedly. "I said, I said about you, and Lou, and telling me you were doing something and not to talk to the Watch, and I said about Madam being gone. I did! I even cried," he added, with a smidgen of reproach, "like you said, and it wasn't easy, either."

The shadowy shape made a noise that shared some qualities with a laugh but lacked the most fundamental one, that is, humor. It dissolved, and left the boy staring at the badly-spelled writing on the wall for some time after.

(a) Well, briefly. And then squelching, because any bird stupid enough to call attention to itself in Ankh-Morpork is not destined to have long in the world of the living, ambulatory and unmaimed.

(b) Bare in relative terms. Almost half an inch of stone had been carved off the walls in some places from constant and relentless graffiti, but it all basically canceled out, right?

(c) For a given value of 'woman', true. A given value being three weeks out of four, in this case.

---

Louisa was ready for him when he solidified out of really quite thin mist, and didn't bat an eye(a).

"Dearest," he said, flatly.

"My lord," she replied. "How goes it?"

"That... boy claims he did what he was supposed to. He's probably telling the truth, but in any case they will have found her missing by now."

"Quite."

"Why is she still alive again, love?"

"Because I retain a fondness for her. Although," she said, with distaste, "it is receding. You oughtn't have been so firm with her, lord, it's left her positively crushed."

"I apologize, of course," he said carelessly.

"Good. And now, there was something else I wanted to discuss with you."

"Oh?"

"I am sure you recall the octiron you had them burn under the concoction? For, ah... added potency?"

"Yes, of course."

"According to Amadeus, it is having unexpected effects on the stuff."

"Such as?"

"He says it spreads."

"Ah," he said, and his mouth curved into the beginnings of a genuinely delighted smile. She did not look at his teeth.

"You expected this?"

"No. It merely... occurred to me. After we had put it in," he added, a shade hastily.

"I'm sure." She started to pace. "I thought the plan was to infect only those people it was necessary to? I know you had your own plans, my lord, but really, this is too much.

When I am... where I intend to be, who knows how far it will have spread? How will I get rid of it?"

He waved a slender hand, languidly. "Do not concern yourself. Right now only Vimes is infected. We can get rid of him before it passes - I can guarantee none of the others have caught it yet."

"Now?"

"Soon."

"And the rest of it? The Patrician?"

"I only wish to see what happens - in the nature of an experiment, shall we say. I can kill him once it has taken effect and I... get what I want out of the matter. I'm sure with him it will be most enlightening. He is famous for being inscrutable, is he not?"

"Oh, certainly."

"Hence the interest, sweetheart."

"Very well."

He nodded, once, curtly, and strode away. Slowly, absently, she touched the wood stake at her side.

The world was a wonderful place when everyone worked to get along.

(a) Although she sometimes made a particular point of batting her eyes.

---

Igor's workbench was a wonderful display of the many and varied things that could be done with seventeen crucibles, two alembics, a retort, a periodic table(a), and lots and lots of chemicals in all colors of the rainbow.

And some that had never been found in any rainbow anywhere ever ever ever, too.

Vimes was apparently transfixed by the gorgeous array, but Sally saw that he really just happened to be staring in that general direction, because Igor was jiggling the cart back and forth in excitement and the Commander's gaze wasn't moving at all.

"Well, Constable Igor?" said Angua. "What's going on?"

"Thith... thith thithnethth!" Igor sputtered. Even Carrot backed away in the face of the spray. "It'th amazthing!"

"What isit, Igor?"

He subsided slightly. "It'th a complicated cocktail of athetate, ammonium, opium, Klatchian coffee -"

"Klatchian coffee?"

"Klatchian coffee," said Igor, nodding. "And -"

"Never mind," she said, "I don't want to know. But what does it do?"

"I've no bloody idea, thargeant."

"You don't? But I thought -"

"A thing like thith? It could do practicallyanything! Even without the octiron it's volatile -"

"Octiron!"

"Yeth, tharge," said Igor, patiently.

"The metal?" Carrot interjected.

"Nos-noththur. The gath."

He was met by blank looks, and sighed expressively. "Amountth to the thame thing really, sir. Thur."

"So it's magical?"

"Yeth thur."

"Bloody hell," said Sally, succinctly. It seemed to summarize their feelings, after all.

Their horrified revery was interrupted, however, when the heavy door sprang open. A tall, pleasant-faced young man was on the other side.

"Hullo, Andre," said Carrot, breaking the silence first. "What's that you've got there?"

The newcomer was carrying a thick set of files under his arm. "Suspect... er... resumes," he said. "Commander Vimes ordered them yesterday, but since he's" he gestured at the immobile man on the slab "out of action, I thought I should give them to you. Was that all right, sir?"

"Very good," said Carrot, taking the sheaf of papers. "These will no doubt come in handy. Feel free to go back to your headquarters," he added, in a friendly yet firm sort of way, when Andre seemed tempted to hang around. "I'm sure you're needed there."

"Er, not really, sir, it's been rather -"

"I'm sure you're needed there," said Angua, just a touch louder than perhaps required, who had suddenly appeared by his shoulder.

"Oh. Right," said Andre, looking slightly crestfallen. He fled.

"Huh," said Carrot, who was skimming through the papers, index finger lightly touching the page.

They waited, in silence. Igor was distractedly chewing on a glove.

Minutes passed. Carrot was a slow reader.

Finally, he pulled one, rather slimmer file from the greater stack. "I think this is it."

Sally blinked first. "You're sure?"

"No," said Carrot. "Take a look?"

She did so. After a while, she became aware that Angua was reading over her shoulder. She ignored the fact, because she had other things on her mind.

Lots of them.

(a) Which was, incidentally, somewhat larger and even more misshapen than its Roundworld equivalent. This was, among other things, because the little square labeled 'octiron' would keep moving around.