The Truth

The werewolf winced and shuddered, but without at any point letting go of Mr Pin's neck. The face contorted so much, features flowing together, that even Mr Pin, who in other circumstances quite enjoyed that sort of thing, had to look away.

This allowed him to see the shadow on the wall. It was, contrary to expectations, growing. So were its ears.

'Any qvestions?' said the werewolf. Now its teeth seriously interfered with its speech. Its breath smelled even worse than Mr Tulip's suit.

'Ah...' said Mr Pin, standing on tiptoe. 'I think we've come to the wrong place.'

'I think zat also.'

At the bar Mr Tulip bit the top off a bottle in a meaningful way.

Once again the room was filled with the ferocious silence of calculation and the personal mathematics of profit and loss.

Mr Tulip smashed a bottle against his forehead. At this point, he did not appear to be paying much attention to the room. He'd just happened to have a bottle in his hand which he did not need any more. Putting it on to the bar would have required an unnecessary expenditure of hand-eye co-ordination.

People recalculated.

'Is he human?' said the werewolf.

'Well, of course, "human" is just a word,' said Mr Pin.

He felt weight slowly press down on to his toes as he was lowered to the floor.

'I think perhaps we'll just be going,' he said carefully.

'Right,' said the werewolf. Mr Tulip had smashed open a big jar of pickles, or at least things that were long, chubby and green, and was trying to insert one up his nose.

'If we wanted to stay, we would,' said Mr Pin.

'Right. But you want to go. So does your... friend,' said the werewolf.

Mr Pin backed towards the door. 'Mr Tulip, we have business

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elsewhere,' he said. 'Sheesh, take the damn pickle out of your nose, will you? We're supposed to be professionals!'

That's not a pickle,' said a voice in the dark.

Mr Pin was uncharacteristically thankful when the door slammed behind them. To his surprise, he also heard the bolts shoot home.

'Well, that could have gone better,' he said, brushing dust and hair off his coat.

'What now?' said Mr Tulip.

'Time to think of a plan B,' said Pin.

'Why don't we just --ing hit people until someone tells us where the dog is?' said Mr Tulip.

'Tempting,' said Mr Pin. 'But we'll leave that for plan C--'

'Bugrit.'

They both turned.

'Bent treacle edges, I told 'em,' said Foul Ole Ron, lurching across the street, a wad of Timeses under one arm and the string of his nondescript mongrel in his other hand. He caught sight of the New Firm.

'Harglegarlyurp?' he said. 'LayamEnipl You gents want a paper?'

It seemed to Mr Pin that the last sentence, while in pretty much the same voice, had an intrusive, not-quite-right quality. Apart from anything else, it made sense.

'You got some change?' he said to Mr Tulip, patting his pockets.

'You're going to --ing buy one?' said his partner.

'There's a time and a place, Mr Tulip, a time and a place. Here you are, mister.'

'Millennium hand and shrimp, bugrit,' said Ron, adding, 'Much obliged, gents.'

Mr Pin opened the Times. 'This thing has got--' He stopped and looked closer.

' "Have You Seen This Dog?"' he said. 'Sheesh...' He stared at Ron.

'You sell lots of these things?' he said.

'Qeedle the slops, I told 'em. Yeah, hundreds.'

There it was again, the slight sensation of two voices.

'Hundreds,' said Mr Pin. He looked down at the paper seller's

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dog. It looked pretty much like the one in the paper, but all terriers looked alike. Anyway, this one was on a string. 'Hundreds,' he said again, and read the short article again.

He stared. 'I think we have a plan B,' he said.

At ground level the newspaper seller's dog watched them carefully as they walked away.

'That was too close for comfort,' it said, when they'd turned the corner.

Foul Ole Ron put down his papers in a puddle and pulled a cold sausage from the depths of his hulking coat.

He broke it into three equal pieces.

THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YE FRED • EXTRA!

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?

$25 Reward for Information

William had dithered over that, but the Watch had supplied quite a good drawing and he felt right now that a little friendly gesture in that direction would be a good idea. If he found himself in deep trouble, head downwards, he'd need someone to pull him out.

He had re-written the Patrician story, too, adding as much as he was certain of, and there wasn't much of that. He was, frankly, stuck.

Sacharissa had penned a story about the opening of the Inquirer. William had hesitated about this, too. But it was news, after all. They couldn't just ignore it, and it filled some space.

Besides, he liked the opening line, which began: 'A would-be rival to Ankh-Morpork's old-established newspaper, the Times, has opened in Gleam Street

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'You're getting good at this,' he said, looking across the desk.

'Yes,' she said. 'I now know that if I see a naked man I should definitely get his name and address, because--'

William joined in the chorus: '--names sell newspapers.'