Vimes was used to the other kinds of nut jobs, the ones that acted quite normally right up to the point where they hauled off and smashed someone with a poker for blowing their nose noisily. But Carcer was different. He was in two minds, but instead of them being in conflict, they were in competition. He had a demon on both shoulders, urging one another on.

And yet…he smiled all the time, in a cheerful chirpy sort of way, and he acted like the kind of rascal who made a dodgy living selling gold watches that go green after a week. And he appeared to be convinced, utterly convinced, that he never did anything really wrong. He'd stand there amid the carnage, blood on his hands and stolen jewellery in his pocket, and with an expression of injured innocence declare, “Me? What did I do?”

And it was believable right up until you looked hard into those cheeky, smiling eyes, and saw, deep down, the demons looking back.

…but you mustn't spend too much time looking at those eyes, because that'd mean you'd taken your eyes off his hands, and by now one of them held a knife.

It was hard for the average copper to deal with people like that. They expected people, when heavily outnumbered, to give in or try to deal or at least just stop moving. They didn't expect people to kill for a five-dollar watch. (A hundred dollar watch, now, that'd be different. This was Ankh-Morpork, after all.)

“Was Stronginthearm married?” he said.

“No, sir. Lived in New Cobblers with his parents.”

Parents, thought Vimes. That made it worse.

“Anyone been to tell them?” he asked. “And don't say it was Nobby. We don't want any repeat of that ‘bet you a dollar you're the widow Jackson’ nonsense.”