'I could wish for them to be otherwise, sir, yes.'

'He should have held a directors' meeting!'

'Yes, sir, but bank rules say he needn't do so for a week, I'm afraid.'

'He will ruin the bank!'

'We are in fact getting many new customers, sir.'

'You can't possibly like the man? Not you, Mr Bent?'

'He is easy to like, sir. But you know me, sir. I do not trust those who laugh too easily. The heart of a fool is in the house of mirth. He should not be in charge of your bank.'

'I like to think of it as our bank, Mr Bent,' said Cosmo generously, 'because, in a very real way, it is ours.'

'You are too kind, sir,' said Bent, staring down at the floorboards visible through the hole in the cheap oilcloth which was itself laid bare, in a very real way, by the bald patch in the carpet which, in a very real way, was his.

'You joined us quite young, I believe,' Cosmo went on. 'My father himself gave you a job as trainee clerk, didn't he?'

'That is correct, sir.'

'He was very… understanding, my father,' said Cosmo. 'And rightly so. No sense in dredging up the past.' He paused for a little while to let this sink in. Bent was intelligent, after all. No need to use a hammer when a feather would float down with as much effect.

'Perhaps you could find some way that will allow him to be removed from office without fuss or bloodshed? There must be something,' he prompted. 'No one just steps out of nowhere. But people know even less about his past than they do about, for the sake of argument, yours.'

Another little reminder. Bent's eye twitched. 'But Mr Fusspot will still be chairman,' he mumbled, while the rain rattled on the glass.

'Oh yes. But I'm sure he will then be looked after by someone who is, shall we say, better capable of translating his little barks along more traditional lines?'

'I see.'

'And now I must be going,' said Cosmo, standing up. 'I'm sure you have a lot of things to' — he looked around the barren room which showed no sign of real human occupation, no pictures, no books, no debris of living, and concluded — 'do?'

'I will go to sleep shortly,' said Mr Bent.

'Tell me, Mr Bent, how much do we pay you?' said Cosmo, glancing at the wardrobe.

'Forty-one dollars per month, sir,' said Bent.

'Ah, but of course you get wonderful job security.'

'So I had hitherto believed, sir.'

'I just wonder why you choose to live here?'

'I like the dullness, sir. It expects nothing of me.'

'Well, time to go,' said Cosmo, slightly faster than he really should. 'I'm sure you can be of help, Mr Bent. You have always been a great help. It would be such a shame if you could not be of help at this time.'

Bent stared at the floor. He was trembling.

'I speak for all of us when I say that we think of you as one of the family,' Cosmo went on. He rethought this sentence with reference to the peculiar charms of the Lavishes and added: 'but in a good way.'

Chapter 6

Jailbreak — The prospect of the kidney sandwich — The barber-surgeon's knock — Suicide by paint, inadvisability of — Angels at one remove — Igor goes shopping — The use of understudies at a hanging, reflections on — Places suitable for putting a head — Moist awaits the sunshine — Tricks with your brain — 'We're going to need some bigger notes' — Fun with root vegetables — The lure of clipboards — The impossible cabinet

ON THE ROOF OF the Tanty, the city's oldest jail, Moist was more than moist. He'd reached the point where he was so wet that he should be approaching dryness from the other end.

With care, he lifted the last of the oil lamps from the little semaphore tower on the flat roof, and tossed its contents into the howling night. They had been only half full in any case. It was amazing that anyone had even bothered to light them on a night like this.

He felt his way back to the edge of the roof and located his grapnel, moving it gently around the stern crenellation and then letting out more rope to lower it down to the invisible ground. Now he had the rope around the big stone bulk he slid down holding on to both lengths and pulled the rope down after him. He stashed both grapnel and rope among the debris in an alley; they would be stolen within an hour or so.

Right, then. Now for it…

The Watch armour he'd lifted from the bank's locker room fitted like a glove. He'd have preferred it to fit like a helmet and breastplate. But in truth it probably didn't look any better on its owner, currently swanking along the corridors in the bank's own shiny but impractical armour. It was common knowledge that the Watch's approach to uniforms was one-size-doesn't-exactly-fit-anybody, and that Commander Vimes disapproved of armour that didn't have that kicked-by-trolls look. He liked armour to state clearly that it had been doing its job.

Moist took some time to get his breath back, and then walked round to the big black door and rang the bell. The mechanism rattled and clanked. They wouldn't rush, not on a night like this.

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!'