The hatch slid back and, after some more clanking, a wicket door opened. Moist stepped through. It was raining just as hard inside the compound.
'Have I seen you before?' said Bellyster, his head on one side.
'Only started last week,' said Moist. Behind him, the door was locked again. The slamming of the bolts echoed in his head.
'Why's there only one of you?' Bellyster demanded.
'Don't know, sir. You'd have to ask my mum and dad.'
'Don't you be funny with me! There should be two on escort duty!'
Moist gave a wet and weary shrug of pure uninterest. 'Should there? Don't ask me. They just told me he's a little piece of piss who'll be no trouble. You can check if you like. I heard the palace wants to see him right away.'
The palace. That changed the gleam in the warder's nasty little eyes. A sensible man didn't get in the way of the palace. And sending out some dim newbie to do a thankless task on a wild night like this made sense; it was exactly what Bellyster would have done.
He held out his hand and demanded: 'Docket!'
Moist handed over the flimsy paper. The man read it, lips perceptibly moving, clearly willing it to be wrong in some way. There'd be no problem there, however much the man glared; Moist had pocketed a handful of the forms while Mr Spools had been making him a cup of coffee.
'He's goin' to hang in the morning,' Bellyster said, holding the sheet up to the lantern. 'What d'they want him for now?'
'Dunno,' said Moist. 'Get a move on, will you? I'm on my break in ten minutes.'
The warder leaned forward. 'Just for that, friend, I will go and check. Just one escort? Can't be too careful, can I?'
O-kay, thought Moist. All going to plan. He'll be ten minutes having a nice cup of tea, just to teach me a lesson, five minutes to find out the clacks isn't working, about one second to decide that he'll be blowed if he's going to sort out the fault on a night like this, another second to think: the paperwork was okay, he'd checked for the watermark, and that was the main thing... call it twenty minutes, give or take.
Of course, he could be wrong. Anything could happen. Bellyster could be rounding up a couple of his mates right now, or maybe he'd get someone to run out the back way and find a real copper. The future was uncertain. Exposure could be a few seconds away.
It didn't get any better than this.
Bellyster left it for twenty-two minutes. Footsteps approached, slowly, and Jenkins appeared, tottering under the weight of the irons, with Bellyster prodding him occasionally with his stick. There was no way the little man could have gone any faster, but he was going to get prodded anyway.
'I don't think I'm going to need the shackles,' said Moist quickly.
'You ain't getting 'em,' said the warder. 'The reason bein', you buggers never bring 'em back!'
'Okay,' said Moist. 'C'mon, it's freezing out here.'
Bellyster grunted. He was not a happy man. He bent down, unlocked the shackles, and stood up again with his hand once more on the man's shoulder. His other hand thrust out, holding a clipboard.
'Sign!' he commanded. Moist did so.
And then came the magic bit. It was why the paperwork was so important, in the greasy world of turnkeys, thief-takers and bang-beggars, because what really mattered at any one moment was habeas corpus: whose hand is on the collar? Who is responsible for this corpus?
Moist had been through this before as the body in question, and knew the drill. The prisoner moved on a trail of paper. If he was found without a head, then the last person to have signed for a prisoner whose hat was not resting on his neck might well have to answer some stern questions.
Bellyster pushed the prisoner forward and spake the time-honoured words: 'To you, sir!' he barked. 'Habby arse corparse!'
Moist thrust the clipboard back at him and laid his other hand on Owlswick's other shoulder. 'From you, sir!' he replied. 'I habby his arse all right!'
Bellyster grunted and removed his hand. The deed was done, the law was observed, honour was satisfied and Owlswick Jenkins -
- looked up sadly at Moist, kicked him hard in the groin, and went off down the street like a hare.
As Moist bent double, all he was aware of outside his little world of pain was the sound of Bellyster laughing himself silly and shouting: 'Your bird, milord! You habbyed him all right! Ho yus!'
Moist had managed to walk normally by the time he got back to the little room he rented from I-don't-know Jack. He struggled into the golden suit, dried off the armour, bundled it into the bag, stepped out into the alley and hurried back to the bank.