“Mr. Pessimal, sir,” said Cheery, ushering in a man not much taller than she was into Vimes’s office. “And here’s the office copy of the Times…”
Mr. Pessimal was neat. In fact, he went beyond neat. He was a folding kind of person. His suit was cheap but very clean, his little boots sparkled. His hair gleamed, too, even more than the boots. It had a center parting and had been plastered down so severely that it looked as though it had been painted on his head.
All the city’s departments got inspected from time to time, Vetinari had said. There was no reason why the Watch should be passed over, was there? It was, after all, a major drain on the city coffers.
Vimes had pointed out that a drain was where things went to waste.
Nevertheless, Vetinari had said. Just “nevertheless.” You couldn’t argue with “nevertheless.”
And the outcome was Mr. Pessimal, walking toward Vimes.
He twinkled as he walked. Vimes couldn’t think of another way to describe it. Every move was…well, neat.
Shovel purse and spectacles on a ribbon, I’ll bet, he thought.
Mr. Pessimal folded himself onto the chair in front of Vimes’s desk and opened the clasps of his briefcase with two little snaps of doom. With some ceremony, he donned a pair of spectacles. They were on a black ribbon.
“My letter of accreditation from Lord Vetinari, Your Grace,” he said, handing over a sheet of paper.
“Thank you, Mr…. A. E. Pessimal,” said Vimes, glancing at it and putting it on one side. “And how can we help you? It’s Commander Vimes when I’m at work, by the way.”
“I will need an office, Your Grace. And an oversight of all your paperwork. As you know, I am tasked to give his lordship a complete overview and cost/benefit analysis of the Watch, with any suggestions for improvement in every aspect of its activities. Your cooperation is appreciated but not essential.”
“Suggestions for improvement, eh?” said Vimes cheerfully, while behind A. E. Pessimal’s chair Sergeant Littlebottom shut her eyes in dread. “Jolly good. I’ve always been known for my cooperative attitude. I did mention about the duke thing, did I?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said A. E. Pessimal primly. “Nevertheless, you are the duke of Ankh-Morpork and it would be inappropriate to address you in any other way. I would feel disrespectful.”
“I see. And how should I address you, Mr. Pessimal?” said Vimes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a floorboard on the other side of the room lift almost imperceptibly.
“A. E. Pessimal will be quite acceptable, Your Grace,” said the inspector.
“The A standing for—?” Vimes said, taking his eyes off the board for a moment.
“Just A, Your Grace,” said A. E. Pessimal patiently. “A. E. Pessimal.”
“You mean you weren’t named, you were initialed?”
“Just so, Your Grace,” said the little man calmly.
“What do your friends call you?” A. E. Pessimal looked as though there was one major assumption in that sentence that he did not understand, so Vimes took a small amount of pity on him.
“Well, Sergeant Littlebottom here will look after you,” he said with fake joviality.
“Find Mr. A. E. Pessimal an office somewhere, Sergeant, and let him see any paperwork he requires.” As much as possible, Vimes thought. Bury him in the stuff, if it keeps him away from me.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” said A. E. Pessimal. “I shall need to interview some officers, too.”
“Why?” said Vimes.
“To ensure that my report is comprehensive, Your Grace,” said Mr. A. E. Pessimal calmly.
“I can tell you anything you need to know,” said Vimes.
“Yes, Your Grace, but that is not how an inquiry works. I must act completely independently. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.”
“I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.”
“Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief little smile.
“I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.”
“Quite so, Your Grace. Nevertheless, I must represent the public interest here. I shall try not to be obtrusive.”
“Very good of you, Mr. Pessimal,” said Vimes, giving up. He hadn’t realized he’d been upsetting Vetinari so much lately. This felt like one of his games. “All right. Enjoy your hopefully brief stay with us. Do excuse me, this is a busy morning, what with the damn Koom Valley thing and everything. Come in, Fred!”
That was a trick he’d learned from Vetinari. It was hard for a visitor to hang on when their replacement was in the room. Besides, Fred sweated a lot in this hot weather; he was a champion sweater. And in all these years he’d never worked out that when you stood outside the office door, the long floorboard seesawed slightly on the joist and rose just where Vimes could notice it.
The piece of floorboard settled again, and the door opened.
“Don’t know how you do it, Mr. Vimes!” said Sergeant Colon cheerfully. “I was just about to knock!”
After you’d had a decent earful, thought Vimes. He was pleased to see A. E. Pessimal’s nose wrinkle, though.
“What’s up, Fred?” he said. “Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Pessimal was just leaving. Carry on, Sergeant Littlebottom. Good morning, Mr. Pessimal.”
Fred Colon removed his helmet as soon as the inspector had been ushered away by Cheery, and wiped his forehead.
“It’s heating up out there again,” he said. “We’re in for thunderstorms, I reckon.”
“Yes, Fred. And you wanted what, exactly?” said Vimes, contriving to indicate that while Fred was always welcome, just now was not the best of times.
“Er…something big’s going down on the street, sir,” said Fred earnestly, in the manner of one who had memorized the phrase.
Vimes sighed. “Fred, do you mean something’s happening?”
“Yes, sir. It’s the dwarfs, sir. I mean the lads here. It’s got worse. They keep going into huddles. Everywhere you look, sir, there’s huddlin’ goin’ on. Only they stops as soon as anyone else comes close. Even the sergeants. They stops and gives you a look, sir. And that’s makin’ the trolls edgy, as you might expect.”
“We’re not going to have Koom Valley replayed in this nick, Fred,” said Vimes. “I know the city’s full of it right now, what with the anniversary coming up, but I’ll drop like a ton of rectangular building things on any copper who tries a bit of historical recreation in the locker room. He’ll be out on his arse before he knows it. Make sure everyone understands that.”
“Yessir. But I ain’t talking about all that stuff, sir. We all know about that,” said Fred Colon. “This is something different, fresh today. It feels bad, sir, makes my neck tingle. The dwarfs know something. Something they ain’t sayin’.”
Vimes hesitated. Fred Colon was not the greatest gift to policing. He was slow, stolid, and not very imaginative. But he’d plodded his way around the streets for so long that he’d left a groove, and somewhere inside that stupid, fat head was something very smart that sniffed the wind and heard the buzz and read the writing on the wall, admittedly doing the last bit with its lips moving.
“Probably it’s just that damn Hamcrusher who has got them stirred up again, Fred,” he said.
“I hear them mentioning his name in their lingo, yes, sir, but there’s more to it, I’ll swear. I mean, they looked really uneasy, sir. It’s something important, sir, I can feel it in my water.”
Vimes considered the admissibility of Fred Colon’s water as Exhibit A. It wasn’t something you’d want to wave around in a court of law, but the gut feeling of an ancient street monster like Fred counted for a lot, one copper to another.
He said, “Where’s Carrot?”
“Off, sir. He pulled the swing shift and the morning shift down at Treacle Mine Road. Everyone’s doin’ double shifts, sir,” Fred Colon added reproachfully.
“Sorry, Fred, you know how it is. Look, I’ll get him on it when he comes in. He’s a dwarf, he’ll hear the buzz.”
“I think he might be just a wee bit too tall to hear this buzz, sir,” said Colon, in an odd voice.
Vimes put his head on one side.
“What makes you say that, Fred?”
Fred Colon shook his head. “Just a feeling, sir,” he said. He added, in a voice tinged with reminiscence and despair, “It was better when there was just you and me and Nobby and the lad Carrot, eh? We all knew who was who in the old days. We knew what one another was thinking…”
“Yes, we were thinking, ‘I wish the odds were on our side, just for once,’ Fred,” said Vimes. “Look, I know this is getting us all down, right? But I need you senior officers to tough it out, okay? How do you like your new office?”
Colon brightened up.
“Very nice, sir. Shame about the door, ’course.”
Finding a niche for Fred Colon had been a problem. To look at him, you’d see a man who might well, if he fell over a cliff, have to stop and ask directions on the way down. You had to know Fred Colon. The newer coppers didn’t. They just saw a cowardly, stupid, fat man, which, to tell the truth, was pretty much what was there. But it wasn’t all that was there.
Fred had looked retirement in the face, and didn’t want any. Vimes had got around the problem by giving him the post of custody officer, to the amusement of all,* and an office in the Watch Training School across the alley, which was much better known as, and probably would forever be known as, the Old Lemonade Factory. He’d thrown in the job of Watch liaison officer, because it sounded good and no one knew what it meant. Vimes had also given him Corporal Nobbs, who was another awkward dinosaur in today’s Watch.
It was working, too. Nobby and Colon had a street-level knowledge of the city that rivaled Vimes’s own. They ambled about, apparently aimlessly and completely unthreatening, and they watched and they listened to the urban equivalent of the jungle drums. And sometimes the drums came to them. Once, Fred’s sweaty little office had been the place where bare-armed ladies had mixed up great batches of Sarsaparilla and Raspberry Lava and Ginger Pop. Now the kettle was always on and it was open house for all his old mates, ex-watchmen and old cons—sometimes the same individual—and Vimes happily signed the bill for the doughnuts consumed when they dropped by to get out from under their wives’ feet. It was worth it. Old coppers kept their eyes open, and gossiped like washerwomen.