"But I"m supposed to turn left on to-"the young man began.
"And give it a touch of the whip, if you please," said Vimes, ignoring him. "This is important!"
"Oh, right! Death-defying high-speed chase, is it?" said the coachman, enthusiasm rising. "Right! I"m the boy for that! You"ve got your man right here, sir. D"you know, I can make this carriage go along for fifty yards on two wheels? Only old Miss Robinson won"t let me. Right side or left side, just say the word! Hyah! Hyah!"
Look, just-" Vimes began, as the whip cracked overhead.
"O"course, getting the horses to run along on two legs was the trick. Actually, it"s more of a hop, you might say," the coachman went on, turning his hat around for minimum wind resistance. "Here, want to see my wheelie?"
"Not especially," said Vimes, staring ahead.
"The hooves don"t "alf raise sparks when I do me wheelie, I can tell you! Hyah!"
The scenery was blurring. Ahead was the cut-through leading to Two Pint Dock. It was normally covered by a swing bridge
-normally.
It was swung now. Vimes could see the masts of a ship being warped out of the dock and into the river.
"Oh, don"t you bother about that, sir," yelled the coachman beside him. "We"ll go along the quay and jump it!"
"You can"t jump a two-master with a four-horse carriage, man!"
"I bet you can if you aim between the masts, sir! Hyah! Hyah!"
Ahead of the coach, men were running for cover. Behind it, the footmen were seeking other employment. Vimes pushed the boy back into his seat, grabbed a handful of reins, put both feet against the brake lever, and hauled.
The wheels locked. The horses began to turn. The coach slid, the metal rims of the wheels sending up sparks and the throaty scream of metal. The horses turned some more. The coach began to swing, dragging the horses with it, whirling them out like fairground mounts. Their hooves made trails of fire across the cobblestones. At this point Vimes let go of everything, gripped the underside of the seat with one hand, held on to the rail with the other, shut his eyes and waited for all the noise to die away.
Blessedly, it did. Only one little sound remained: a petulant banging on the coach roof caused, probably, by a walking stick. A querulous, elderly female voice could be heard saying: "Johnny? Have you been driving fast again, young man?"
"A bootlegger"s turn!" Johnny breathed, looking at a team of four steaming horses now facing back the way they"d come. "I am
impressed!"
He turned to Vimes, who wasn"t there.
The men moving the ship had dropped their ropes and run at the sight of coach and four spinning down the road towards them. The dock entrance was narrow. A man could easily scramble up a rope on to the deck, run across the ship and let himself down on to the cobbles on the other side. And this a man had just done.
Vimes, speeding along, could see that Misbegot Bridge was going to be a struggle. An overloaded hay wagon had wedged itself between the rickety houses that line the bridge, ripped out part of someone"s upper storey, and had shed some of its load in the process. There was a fight going on between the carter and the unimpressed owner of the new bungalow. Valuable seconds were spent struggling over and through the hay until he was hurrying through the backed-up traffic to the other end of the bridge. Ahead
of him was the wide thoroughfare known as Prouts, full of vehicles
and uphill all the way.
He wasn"t going to make it. It must be gone five to six already.
The thought of it, the thought of that little face
"Mister Vimes!"
He turned. A mail coach had just pulled out on to the road
behind him and was coming up at a trot. Carrot was sitting beside
the driver and waving frantically at him.
"Get on the step, sir!" he yelled. "You don"t have much time!" Vimes started to run once more and, as the coach drew level,