Thud! - Terry Pratchett [78]
Right here, and right now, Brick was feeling a very lonely troll.
Dere was nothin’ for it. Dere was only one person who could help him w’ dis one. It was too much t’inkin’ for one troll.
Slinking through alleys, pressed against walls, keeping his head down, avoiding every living creature, Brick sought out Mr. Shine.
Angua decided to go straight to Pseudopolis Yard rather than a closer Watch house. That was HQ, after all, and besides, she always kept a spare uniform in her locker.
What was annoying was that Sally walked so easily in six-inch heels. That was vampires for you. She had taken hers off and was carrying them; it was that or turn an ankle. The Pink PussyCat Club had a fairly limited choice of footwear. There wasn’t much to choose from in the way of clothing, either, if by clothing you meant something that actually made an attempt to cover anything.
Angua had been rather surprised that the stage wardrobe had included a female Watch outfit, but with skimpy papier-mâché armor and a skirt that was much too short to be any protection. Tawneee had explained, rather carefully, that men sometimes liked to see a pretty girl in armor. To Angua, who’d found that men she was apprehending never looked very pleased to see her, this was food for thought.
She’d settled for a sequined gold dress, which just didn’t work. Sally had picked something simple and cut to the thigh, in blue, which, of course, had become stunning the moment she’d put it on. She looked fabulous.
So when Angua strode into the main office, slamming the big doors back, and there was a derisory wolf-whistle, the unwise watchman found himself being pushed backwards until he was slammed against the wall. He felt two sharp points pressed against his neck as Angua growled, “You want a wolf, do you? Say no, Sergeant Angua.”
“No, Sergeant Angua!”
“You don’t? I was probably mistaken then, was I?” The points pressed a little harder. In the man’s mind, steely talons were about to pierce his jugular.
“Couldn’t say for sure, Sergeant Angua!”
“My nerves are a tad stretched right now!” Angua howled.
“Hadn’t noticed, Sergeant Angua!”
“We’re all a little bit on edge at the moment, wouldn’t you say!”
“That’s ever so true, Sergeant Angua!”
Angua let the man’s boot reach the ground. She put two black, shiny, and noticeably pointed heels into his unresisting hands.
“Could you do me a really big favor, please, and take these back up to the Pink PussyCat Club?” she said sweetly. “They belong to someone called Sherilee, I think. Thank you.”
She turned and looked over to the duty desk, where Carrot was watching her with his mouth open. Well aware of the stir she was causing, she walked up to the desk past an audience of shocked faces and threw a muddy necklace down onto the open Incident Book.
“Four dwarfs murdered by other dwarfs, down in the Long Dark,” she said. “I’ll bet my nose on it. That belonged to one of them. He’d also got this.” A muddy envelope was dropped by the necklace. “It’s pretty slimy, but you can read it. Mister Vimes is going to go postal.” She looked up into the blue eyes of Carrot. “Where is he?”
“Sleeping on a mattress in his office,” said Carrot, and shrugged. “Lady Sybil knew he wouldn’t go home, so she got Willikins to make up a bed down here. Are you two all right?”
“Fine, sir,” said Sally.
“I was getting very worried—” Carrot began.
“Four dead dwarfs, Captain,” said Angua. “City dwarfs. That’s what you should be worrying about. Three half-buried, this one crawled away.”
Carrot picked up the necklace and read the runes.
“Lars Legstrong,” he said. “I think I know the family. Are you sure he was murdered?”
“Throat cut. It’d be hard to call it suicide. But he took some time to die. He made it to one of their damn doors, which they’d locked shut,