I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett [122]
Tiffany gave him her sweetest smile, which wasn’t all that sweet, however hard you tried; she’d never really got the hang of sweet.
‘It’s important to be clear about these things, don’t you think?’
She sniffed, and noticed no odour other than a hint of shaving cream. Even so, she was going to have to be on her guard.
It was a good funeral too; from Tiffany’s point of view, a good funeral was one where the main player was very old. She had been to some – too many – where they were small and wrapped in a shroud. Coffins were barely known on the Chalk, and indeed nearly anywhere else. Decent timber was too expensive to be left to rot underground. A practical white woollen shroud did for most people; it was easy to make, not too expensive, and good for the wool industry. The Baron, however, went to his eternal rest inside a tomb of white marble which, him being a practical man, he had designed, bought and paid for twenty years ago. There was a white shroud inside it, because marble can be a bit chilly to lie on.
And that was the end of the old Baron, except that only Tiffany knew where he really was. He was walking with his father in the stubbles, where they burned the corn stalks and the weeds, a perfect late-summer’s day, one never-changing perfect moment held in time …
She gasped. ‘The drawing!’ Even though she’d spoken under her breath, people around her turned to look. She thought, How selfish of me! And then thought, Surely it will still be there?
As soon as the lid of the stone tomb had been slid into place with a sound that Tiffany would always remember, she went and found Brian, who was blowing his nose; when he looked up at her he was pink around the eyes.
She took him gently by the arm, trying not to sound urgent. ‘The room that the Baron was living in, is it locked?’
He looked shocked. ‘I should say so! And the money is in the big safe in the office. Why d’you want to know?’
‘There was something very valuable in there. A leather folder. Did that get put in the big safe too?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Believe me, Tiff, after the’ – he hesitated – ‘bit of trouble, I did an inventory of everything in that room. Not a thing went out from there without me seeing it and putting it down in my notebook. With my pencil,’ he added, for maximum accuracy. ‘Nothing like a leather folder was taken out, I’m sure of it.’
‘No. Because Miss Spruce had already taken it,’ Tiffany said. ‘That wretched nurse! I didn’t mind about the money, because I never expected the money! Maybe she thought it had deeds in it or something!’
Tiffany hurried back to the hall and looked around. Roland was the Baron now, in every respect. And it was in respect that people were clustering around him, saying things like, ‘He was a very good man,’ and ‘He’d had a good innings,’ and ‘At least he didn’t suffer,’ and all the other things people say after a funeral when they don’t know what to say.
And now Tiffany headed purposefully towards the Baron, and stopped when a hand landed on her shoulder. She followed the arm up to the face of Nanny Ogg, who had managed to obtain the biggest flagon of ale that Tiffany had ever seen. To be precise, she noticed it was a half-full flagon of ale.
‘Nice to see something like this done well,’ said Nanny. ‘Never knew the old boy, of course, but he sounds like a decent fellow. Nice to see you, Tiff. Managing all right?’
Tiffany looked into those innocent smiling eyes, and past them to the much sterner face of Granny Weatherwax, and the brim of her hat. Tiffany bowed.
Granny Weatherwax cleared her throat with a sound like gravel. ‘We ain’t here on business, my girl, we just wanted to help the king make a good entrance.’
‘We are not here about the Cunning Man neither,’ Nanny Ogg added cheerfully. It sounded like a simple and silly giveaway,