Chris Patterson - Going Postal

‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!'

Horsefry grinned.

‘Ah, you've met Alphonse,' said Reacher Gilt. ‘And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Crispin?' The door swung slowly behind him into its felt-lined frame, shutting out the sound of distant music.

Horsefry turned, the brief moment of amusement evaporating instantly into the fearful turmoil of his soul. Gilt, one hand in the pocket of a beautiful smoking jacket, gave him a quizzical look.

‘I'm being spied on, Readier!' Horsefry burst out. "Vetinari sent one of—'

‘Please! Sit down, Crispin. I think you require a large brandy.' He wrinkled his nose. ‘Another large brandy, should I say?'

‘I wouldn't say no! Had to have a little snifter, you know, just to calm m'nerves! What a day I've had!' Horsefry plumped down into a leather armchair. ‘Did you know there was a watchman on duty outside the bank almost all afternoon?'

‘A fat man? A sergeant?' said Gilt, handing him a glass.

‘Fat, yes. I didn't notice his rank.' Horsefry sniffed. ‘I've never had anything to do with the Watch.'

‘I, on the other hand, have,' said Gilt, wincing to see very fine brandy drunk in the way Horsefry was drinking it. ‘And I gather that Sergeant Colon is in the habit of loitering near large buildings not in case they are stolen, but in fact simply because he enjoys a quiet smoke out of the wind. He is a clown, and not to be feared.'

‘Yes, but this morning one of the revenue officers came to see that old fool Cheeseborough—'

‘Is that unusual, Crispin?' said Gilt soothingly. ‘Let me top up your glass there...'

‘Well, they come once or twice a month,' Horsefry conceded, thrusting out the empty brandy glass. ‘But—'

‘Not unusual, then. You're shying at flies, my dear Crispin.'

‘Vetinari is spying on me!' Horsefry burst out. ‘There was a man in black spying on the house this evening! I heard a noise and I looked out and I could see him standing in the corner of the garden!'

‘A thief, perhaps?'

‘No, I'm fully paid up with the Guild! I'm sure someone was in the house this afternoon, too. Things were moved in my study. I'm worried, Reacher! I'm the one who stands to lose here! If there's an audit—'

‘You know there won't be, Crispin.' Gilt's voice was like honey.

‘Yes, but I can't get my hands on all the paperwork, not yet, not until old Cheeseborough retires. And Vetinari's got lots of little, you know, what are they called... clerks, you know, who do nothing but look at li'l bits of paper! They'll work it out, they will! We bought the Grand Trunk wi' its own money!'

Gilt patted him on the shoulder. ‘Calm yourself, Crispin. Nothing is going to go wrong. You think about money in the old-fashioned way. Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.'

The voice was almost hypnotic, but Horsefry's terror was driving him on. His forehead glistened.

‘Then Greenyham's pissing in it!' he snapped, his little eyes aglint with desperate malice. ‘You know that tower widdershins of Lancre that was giving all that trouble a coupla months ago? When we were tol' it was all due to witches flying into the towers? Hah! It w's only a witch the firs' time! Then Greenyham bribed a couple of the new men in the tower to call in a breakdown, and one of them rode like hell for the downstream tower and sen' him the Genua market figures a good two hours before everyone else got them! That's how he cornered dried prawns, you know. And dried fish maw and dried ground shrimp. It's not the firs' time he's done it, either! The man is coining it!'

Gilt looked at Horsefry, and wondered whether killing him now would be the best option. Vetinari was clever. You didn't stay ruler of a fermenting mess of a city like this one by being silly. If you saw his spy, it was a spy he wanted you to see. The way you'd know that Vetinari was keeping an eye on you would be by turning round very quickly and seeing no one at all.

Godsdamn Greenyham, too. Some people had no grasp, no grasp at all. They were so... small .

Using the clacks like that was stupid, but allowing a bottom-feeder like Horsefry to find out about it was indefensible. It was silly. Silly small people with the arrogance of kings, running their little swindles, smiling at the people they stole from, and not understanding money at all.

And stupid, pig-like Horsefry had come running here. That made it a little tricky. The door was soundproofed, the carpet was easily replaceable and, of course, Igors were renowned for their discretion, but almost certainly someone unseen had watched the man walk in and therefore it was prudent to ensure that he walked out.

‘Y'r a goo' man, Reacher Gilt,' Horsefry hiccuped, waving the brandy glass unsteadily now that it was almost empty again. He put it down on a small table with the exaggerated care of a drunk, but since it was the wrong one of three images of the table sliding back and forth across his vision the glass smashed on the carpet.

‘Sor' ‘bout that,' he slurred. ‘Y'r a goo' man, so I'm goin' to gi' you this. Can't keep it inna house, can't keep it, not wi' Vetininararari's spies on to me. Can't burn it neither, ‘sgot everything in it. All the little... transactions. Ver' important. Can't trust the others, they hate me. You take care of it, eh?'

He pulled out a battered red journal and proffered it unsteadily. Gilt took it, and flicked it open. His eye ran down the entries.

‘You wrote everything down, Crispin?' he said. ‘Why?'

Crispin looked appalled. ‘Got to keep records, Reacher,' he said. ‘Can't cover y'tracks if you don't know where y'left ‘em. Then... can put it all back, see, hardly a crime at all.' He tried to tap the side of his nose, and missed.

‘I shall look after it with great care, Crispin,' said Gilt. ‘You were very wise to bring it to me.'

‘That means a lot t'me, Reacher,' said Crispin, now heading for the maudlin stage. ‘You take me serioussoussly, not like Greenyham and his pals. I take the risks, then they treat me like drit. I mean dirt. Bloody goo' chap, you are. ‘sfunny, y'know, you havin' an Igor, bloody goo' chap like you, ‘cos—' He belched hugely, "cos I heard that Igors only worked for mad chaps. Tot'ly bonkers chaps, y'know, and vampires and whatnot, people who're a few pennies short of a picnic. Nothing against your man, mark you, he looks a bloody fine fellow, hahaha, several bloody fine fellows...'

Readier Gilt pulled him up gently. ‘You're drunk, Crispin,' he said. ‘And too talkative. Now, what I'm going to do is call Igor—'

‘Yeth, thur?' said Igor behind him. It was the kind of service few could afford.

‘—and he'll take you home in my coach. Make sure you deliver him safely to his valet, Igor. Oh, and when you've done that could you locate my colleague Mr Gryle? Tell him I have a little errand for him. Goodnight, Crispin.' Gilt patted the man on a wobbly cheek. ‘And don't worry . Tomorrow you'll find all these little anxieties will have just... disappeared.'

‘Ver' good chap,' Horsefry mumbled happily. ‘F'r a foreigner...'

Igor took Crispin home. By that time the man had reached the ‘jolly drunk' stage and was singing the kind of song that's hilarious to rugby players and children under the age of eleven, and getting him into his house must have awoken the neighbours, especially when he kept repeating the verse about the camel.

Then Igor drove back home, put the coach away, saw to the horse, and went to the little pigeon loft behind the house. These were big, plump pigeons, not the diseased roof rats of the city, and he selected a fat one, expertly slipped a silver message ring round its leg, and tossed it up into the night.