‘Are you talking about sabotage here?’ said Gilt.
‘Call it what you like,’ said Pony, drunk with nervousness. ‘I went to the yard this morning and dug out the old drum we took out of Tower 14 last month. I’ll swear the same thing happened there. But mostly the breakdowns are in the upper tower, in the shutter boxes. That’s where—’
‘So our Mr Lipwig has been behind a campaign to sabotage us . . .’ Gilt mused.
‘I never said that!’ said Pony.
‘No name need be mentioned,’ said Gilt smoothly.
‘It’s just sloppy design,’ said Pony. ‘I dare say one of the lads found it by accident and tried it again to see what happened. They’re like that, the tower boys. Show ‘em a bit of cunning machinery and they’ll spend all day trying to make it fail. The whole Trunk’s a lash-up, it really is.’
‘Why do we employ people like this?’ said Stowley, looking bewildered.
‘Because they’re the only people mad enough to spend their life up a tower miles from anywhere pressing keys,’ said Pony. ‘They like it.’
‘But somebody in a tower must press the keys that do all these . . . terrible things,’ said Stowley.
Pony sighed. They never took an interest. It was just money. They didn’t know how anything worked. And then suddenly they needed to know, and you had to use baby talk.
‘The lads follow the signal, sir, as they say,’ he said. ‘They watch the next tower and repeat the message, as fast as they can. There’s no time to think about it. Anything for their tower comes out on the differential drum. They just pound keys and kick pedals and pull levers, as fast as they can. They take pride in it. They even do all kinds of tricks to speed things up. I don’t want any talk about sabotage, not right now. Let’s just get the message sent, as fast as possible. The lads will enjoy that.’
‘The image is attractive,’ said Gilt. ‘The dark of night, the waiting towers, and then, one by one, they come alive as a serpent of light speeds across the world, softly and silently carrying its . . . whatever. We must get some poet to write about it.’ He nodded at Mr Pony. ‘We’re in your hands, Mr Pony. You’re the man with the plan.’
‘I don’t have one,’ said Moist.
‘No plan?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Are you telling me you—’
‘Keep it down, keep it down!’ Moist hissed. ‘I don’t want everyone to know!’
They were in the little cafe near the Pin Exchange which, Moist had noticed, didn’t seem to be doing much business today. He’d had to get out of the Post Office, in case his head exploded.
‘You challenged the Grand Trunk! You mean you just talked big and hoped something would turn up?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘It’s always worked before! Where’s the sense in promising to achieve the achievable? What kind of success would that be?’ said Moist.
‘Haven’t you ever heard of learning to walk before you run?’
‘It’s a theory, yes.’
‘I just want to be absolutely clear,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Tomorrow night – that’s the day after today – you are going to send a coach -that’s a thing on wheels, pulled by horses, which might reach fourteen miles an hour on a good road – to race against the Grand Trunk -that’s all those semaphore towers, which can send messages at hundreds of miles an hour – all the way to Genua – that’s the town which is a very long way away indeed?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have no wonderful plan?’
‘No.’
‘And why are you telling me?’
‘Because, in this city, right now, you are the only person who would possibly believe I don’t have a plan!’ said Moist. ‘I told Mr Groat and he just tapped the side of his nose, which is something you wouldn’t want to watch, by the way, and said, “Of course you haven’t, sir. Not you! Hohoho!”‘
‘And you just hoped something would turn up? What made you think it would?’
‘It always has. The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.’
‘And I’m supposed to help you how?’
‘Your father built the Trunk!’
‘Yes, but I didn’t,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve never been up in the towers. I don’t know any big secrets, except that it’s always on the point of breaking down. And everyone knows that.’
‘People who can’t afford to lose are betting money on me! And the more I tell them they shouldn’t, the more they bet!’
‘Don’t you think that’s a bit silly of them?’ said Miss Dearheart sweetly.
Moist drummed his fingers on the edge of the table. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I can think of another good reason why you might help me. It’s a little complicated, so I can only tell you if you promise to sit still and not make any sudden movements.’
‘Why, do you believe I will?’
‘Yes. I think that in a few seconds you’ll try to kill me. I’d like you to promise not to.’
She shrugged. ‘This should be interesting.’
‘Promise?’ said Moist.
‘All right. I hope it’s going to be exciting.’ Miss Dearheart flicked some ash off her cigarette. ‘Go on.’
Moist took a couple of calm breaths. This was it. The End. If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.
‘I am the man who lost you that job at the bank. I forged those bills.’
Miss Dearheart’s expression didn’t change, apart from a certain narrowing of the eyes. Then she blew out a stream of smoke.
‘I did promise, did I?’ she said.
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Did I have my fingers crossed?’
‘No. I was watching.’
‘Hmm.’ She stared reflectively at the glowing end of her cigarette. ‘All right. You’d better tell me the rest of it.’
He told her the rest of it. All of it. She quite liked the bit where he was hanged, and made him repeat it. Around them, the city happened. Between them, the ashtray filled up with ash.
When he’d finished she stared at him for some time, through the smoke.
‘I don’t understand the bit where you give all your stolen money to the Post Office. Why did you do that?’
‘I’m a bit hazy on that myself.’
‘I mean, you’re clearly a self-centred bastard, with the moral fibre of a, a—’
‘—rat,’ Moist suggested.
‘—a rat, thank you . . . but suddenly you’re the darling of the big religions, the saviour of the Post Office, official snook-cocker to the rich and powerful, heroic horseman, all-round wonderful human being and, of course, you rescued a cat from a burning building. Two humans, too, but everyone knows the cat’s the most important bit. Who are you trying to fool, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Me, I think. I’ve fallen into good ways. I keep thinking I can give it up any time I like, but I don’t. But I know if I couldn’t give it up any time I liked, I wouldn’t go on doing it. Er . . . there is another reason, too.’
‘And that is—?’
‘I’m not Reacher Gilt. That’s sort of important. Some people might say there’s not a lot of difference, but I can see it from where I stand and it’s there. It’s like a golem not being a hammer. Please? How can I beat the Grand Trunk?’
Miss Dearheart stared through him until he felt very uncomfortable.
Then she said, in a faraway voice: ‘How well do you know the Post Office, Mr Lipwig? The building, I mean.’
‘I saw most of it before it burned down.’
‘But you never went on to the roof?’
‘No. I couldn’t find a way up. The upper floors were stuffed with letters when . . . I . . . tried . . .’ Moist’s voice trailed off.
Miss Dearheart stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Go up there tonight, Mr Lipwig. Get yourself a little bit closer to heaven. And then get down on your knees and pray. You know how to pray, don’t you? You just put your hands together – and hope.’
Moist got through the rest of the day somehow. There were postmastery things to do – Mr Spools to speak to, builders to shout at, the everlasting clearing up to oversee and new staff to hire. In the case of the staff, though, it was more ratifying the decisions of Mr Groat and Miss Maccalariat, but they seemed to know what they were doing. He just had to be there to make the occasional judgement, like:
‘Do we embrace divertingly?’ said Miss Maccalariat, appearing in front of his desk.
There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to a lot of little pauses, each one more deeply embarrassing than its parent.
‘Not as far as I know,’ was the best Moist could manage. ‘Why do you ask?’