Making Money

And did the Lavishes lavish anything on you? said a familiar little voice in his head. It was a hated little part of himself that he had beaten and starved and punched back into its wardrobe for years. It wasn’t the voice of his conscience. He was the voice of his conscience. It was the voice of the … the mask.

‘No!’ snapped Bent. Some of the nearest clerks looked up at the unaccustomed noise and then hurriedly lowered their heads for fear of catching his eye. Bent stared fixedly at the sheet in front of him, watching the numbers roll past. Rely on the numbers! They didn’t let you down …

Cosmo doesn’t respect you, you fool, you fool. You have run their bank for them and cleaned up after them! You made, they spent … and they laugh at you. You know they do. Silly Mr Bent with his funny walk, silly, silly, silly …

‘Get away from me, get away,’ he whispered.

The people like him because he likes them. No one likes Mr Bent.

‘But I have worth. I have value!’ Mr Bent pulled another worksheet towards him and sought solace in its columns. But he was pursued …

Where was your worth and value when you made the numbers dance, Mr Bent? The innocent numbers? You made them dance and somersault and cartwheel when you cracked your whip, and they danced into the wrong places, didn’t they, because Sir Joshua demanded his price! Where did the gold dance off to, Mr Bent? Smoke and mirrors!

‘No!’

In the counting house all the pens ceased moving for a few seconds, before scribbling again with frantic activity.

Eyes watering with shame and rage, Mr Bent tried to unscrew the top from his patent fountain pen. In the muted silence of the banking hall, the click of the green pen being deployed had the same effect as the sound of the axe-man sharpening his blade. Every clerk bent low to his desk. Mr Bent Had Found A Mistake. All anyone could do was keep their eyes on the paper in front of them and hope against hope that it was not theirs.

Someone, and please gods it would not be them, would have to go and stand in front of the high desk. They knew that Mr Bent did not like mistakes: Mr Bent believed that mistakes were the result of a deformity of the soul.

At the sound of the Pen of Doom, one of the senior clerks hurried to Mr Bent’s side. Those workers who risked being turned to water by the ferocity of Mr Bent’s stare essayed a quick glance, saw her being shown the offending document. There was a distant tut-tut sound. Her tread as she came down the steps and crossed the floor echoed in deadly, praying silence. She did not know it as she scurried, button-boots flashing, to the desk of one of the youngest and newest clerks, but she was about to meet a young man who was destined to go down in history as one of the great heroes of banking.

The dark organ music filled the Department of Post-Mortem Communications. Moist assumed it was all part of the ambience, although the mood would have been more precisely obtained if the tune it was playing did not appear to be Cantata and Fugue for Someone Who Has Trouble with the Pedals.

As the last note died, after a long illness, Dr Hicks spun round on the stool and raised the mask.

‘Sorry about that, I have two left feet sometimes. Could you both just chant a bit while I do the mystic waving, please? Don’t worry about words. Anything seems to work if it sounds sepulchral enough.’

As he walked around the circle chanting variants on oo! and raah! Moist wondered how many bankers raised the dead during the course of an afternoon. Probably not a high number. He shouldn’t be doing this, surely. He should be out there making money. Owls— Clamp must have finished the design by now. He could be holding his first note in his hands by tomorrow! And then there was damn Cribbins, who could be talking to anyone. True, the man had a sheet as long as a roller towel, but the city worked by alliances and if he met up with the Lavishes then Moist’s life would unravel all the way back to the gallows—

‘In my day we at least hired a decent mask,’ growled an elderly voice. ‘I say, is that a woman over there?’