Making Money

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.

It was harder to get back in than it had been to get out. The guards changed over at the same time as the staff left, and in the general milling about Moist, wearing the tatty grey suit he wore when he wanted to stop being Moist von Lipwig and turn into the world’s most unmemorable man, had strolled out unquestioned. It was all in the mind: the night guards started guarding when everyone had gone home, right? So people going home were no problem or, if they were, they were not mine.

The guard who finally turned up to see who was struggling to unlock the front door gave him a bit of trouble until a second guard, who was capable of modest intelligence, pointed out that if the chairman wanted to get into the bank at midnight then that was fine. He was the damn boss, wasn’t he? Don’t you read the papers? See the gold suit? And he had a key! So what if he had a big fat bag? He was coming in with it, right? If he was leaving with it that might be a different matter, ho ho, just my little joke, sir, sorry about that, sir …

It was amazing what you could do if you had the nerve to try, thought Moist, as he bid the men goodnight. F’r instance, he’d been so theatrically working the key in the lock because it was a Post Office key. He didn’t have one for the bank yet.

Even putting the armour back in the locker was not a problem. The guards still walked set routes and the buildings were big and not very well lit. The locker room was empty and unregarded for hours at a time.

A lamp was still alight in his new suite. Mr Fusspot was snoring on his back in the middle of the in-tray. A night-light was burning by the bedroom door. In fact there were two, and they were the red, smouldering eyes of Gladys.

‘Would You Like Me To Make You A Sandwich, Mr Lipwig?’

‘No, thank you, Gladys.’

‘It Would Be No Trouble. There Are Kidneys In The Ice Room.’

‘Thank you, but no, Gladys. I’m really not hungry,’ said Moist, carefully shutting the door.

Moist lay on the bed. Up here, the building was absolutely silent. He’d grown used to his bed in the Post Office, where there was always noise drifting up from the yard.