Making Money (Discworld 36)

He was as naked and exposed as a baby lobster. He hoped he'd covered all the angles, but angles were  -  what did they call it, he'd gone to a lecture at the university... ah, yes. Angles were fractal. Each one was full of smaller angles. You couldn't cover them all. The watchman at the bank might be called back to work and find his locker empty, someone might have seen Moist take it, Jenkins might have been moved... The hell with it. When time was pressing you just had to spin the wheel and be ready to run.

Or, in this case, lift the huge door knocker in both hands and bring it down sharply, twice, on the nail. He waited until, with difficulty, a small hatch in the door was pulled aside.

'What?' said a petulant voice in a shadowy face.

'Prisoner pick-up. Name of Jenkins.'

'What? It's the middle of the bleedin' night!'

'Got a signed Form 37,' said Moist stolidly.

The little hatch slammed shut. He waited in the rain again. This time it was three minutes before it opened.

'What?' said a new voice, marinated in suspicion.

Ah, good. It was Bellyster. Moist was glad of that. What he was going to do tonight was going to make one of the warders a very uncomfortable screw, and some of them were decent enough, especially on Death Row. But Bellyster was a real old-school screw, a craftsman of small evils, the kind of bully who would take every opportunity to make a prisoner's life a misery. It wasn't just that he'd gob in your bowl of greasy skilly; but he wouldn't even have the common decency to do it where you couldn't see him. He picked on the weak and frightened, too. And there was another good thing. Bellyster hated the Watch, and the feeling was mutual. A man could use that.

'Come for a pris'ner,' Moist complained. An' I been standing in the rain for five minutes!'

'And you shall continue to do so, my son, oh, yes indeed, until I'm ready. Show me the docket!'

'Says here Jenkins, Owlswick,' said Moist.

'Let me see it, then!'

'They said I has to hand it over when you give me the pris'ner,' said Moist, a model of stolid insistence.

'Oh, we have a lawyer here, do we? All right, Abe, let my learned friend in.'

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.