The assassin’s name was Flinch. Although … truth be told, he, the assassin in question, rather wished it weren’t.

For one thing, it didn’t say much about his professional credibility. People expected an assassin named something like "Nightshade" or “Shadows End,” not "Flinch." It may be marginally better than "Cuddles" or “Duck”, but not by much. It sent the wrong message.

Unfortunately, in the Guild of Assassins, names stuck. The moment a juvenile Thaddeus Flinch had hesitated (and then, for just a moment, mind you, and the target had very rudely kicked him in the shin), he had been forever known as Flinch.

Still, he prided himself that he was good at what he did. Mostly.

Which was why he found himself standing in the pitch-dark of a smelly alley behind a rather unwholesome tavern, looking down the length of his rather swish, twelve-inch, non-slip dagger at a man who, despite all reason, was smiling at him.

“Hmm. Unusual,” thought Flinch.

People generally had a range of responses to an assassin suddenly appearing before them intent upon doing the business for which they were paid. Smiling was not among the most common. There was screaming, pleading, fainting, occasionally defecating (which, Flinch had to admit, was simply discourteous), and the rare few who tried to fight back. But not smiling. Not as such.

Yet this cove, slender, bespectacled, with the faint air of someone who had once got lost in his own house whilst searching for a missing sock, was smiling up at him. His name was Wilbur Scrope, a notary, and, it would seem, a target of the Guild.

“My dear chap,” said Scrope amiably, “you have the wrong man.”

Flinch, who had read the briefing notes twice (he wasn’t making that mistake again after the regrettable Lady Herdingham-Chalmondley Incident), was certain he did not have the wrong man. However, a verbal check would clarify matters.

“You are Wilbur Scrope, Notary Public, resident of 47 Underhaugh Lane?” he said.

“Yes, that’s me,” said Scrope cheerfully. “But you’ve still got the wrong man.”

Flinch sighed. It was going to be one of those jobs. “Look,” he said, “it’s nothing personal. I’m sure you’re a very nice sort of chap. But someone paid the Guild, and what the Guild is paid to do, the Guild does. If we started saying ‘oh, well, he seems rather pleasant, let’s not do him. Or her, obviously,’ then where would we all be?”

“In a world where people don’t go around murdering notaries public?” Scrope suggested.

Flinch shrugged. “It would make a mess of the economy, I expect. Chaos would ensue. People would stop believing that they could get what they’ve paid for.”

“Ah.” Scrope nodded. “Well, I really can’t argue with economic stability, now can I?”

Flinch narrowed his eyes. “I must say, you’re taking this very well. It’s not the usual response to my arrival at the scene of the murder-to-be.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely terrified, believe me,” said Scrope. “But you see, I already know you won’t be doing it.”

Flinch stiffened. “I assure you, I will. You’re just lucky I believe in last words.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Scrope, “but that’s not why. It’s because of your eyes.”

Flinch blinked. “What?”

“Your eyes,” said Scrope matter-of-factly. “They’re kind. They don’t belong to a killer.”

Flinch frowned. This was the sort of thing he’d been warned about when he was an apprentice assassin. People with eloquence, slithering out from under. Not to be tolerated on pain of expulsion from the aforementioned Guild. “That’s not true,” said Flinch.

“Oh, but I’m afraid it is,” Scrope continued. “I’ve seen killer’s eyes before, you know. Cold, hard, dead things, like fish. Yours aren’t like that. You don’t have them. Not your actual killer’s eyes. Sorry. But there it is.”

“I bloody well do,” Flinch said, slightly offended, “snake-eyes, I’ve been called. Admittedly, that was my ex-girlfriend.”

“Nevertheless. Kind. Hazel coloured aren’t they?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. Up to a point,” admitted Flinch, grudgingly.

“Lovely colour, Hazel,” said Scrope, conversationally. “Very warm. The eyes of someone who thinks about things, rather than simply does them.”

Flinch was beginning to feel deeply uncomfortable. He had spent years cultivating a reputation as a ruthless, not entirely inefficient assassin. He had practiced brooding looks in the mirror. He had learned how to loom menacingly. He’d scored straight A’s in advanced lurking. And yet here was this scrawny geezer, calmly dismantling his entire career, because, apparently, he had the eyes of a toilet roll puppy.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, shaking himself. “I’m going to kill you now. I’m absolutely going to run you through with this dagger. A good solid stabbing is what you need, if you ask me.”

“No, you’re not,” said Scrope, not unkindly. “You don’t really want to. I can always tell, you know.”

Flinch opened his mouth. Then shut it again. Kind of like a fish, although with nicer eyes, obviously.

Because the horrible, awful, career-destroying thing was… Scrope was right. And Flinch knew it.

He didn’t want to kill anybody. Not at all. Never had, actually. It was only because his father had said he needed a trade to fall back on that he’d gone into the assassin malarkey in the first place.

For all that he had tried, he knew, deep down. He didn’t want this life. He never had.

Flinch sighed. He lowered the dagger.

“Damn it,” he muttered, “now what am I supposed to do?”

“Sorry about that,” said Scrope, who, despite the situation, seemed genuinely apologetic. “It’s not my fault, you know. Your face is just very expressive.”

“This is going to cause no end of trouble,” Flinch grumbled, “everyone will be so cross.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” said Scrope. “The way I see it, you have two options. One, you return to the Guild, explain the situation, making a full and fair confession, and end up killed yourself. Those are, I believe, the rules as currently laid down.”

“Not fond of that option, if I’m being completely honest.” Flinch admitted.

“Or two,” Scrope continued, “you just disappear. Start afresh, and, perhaps, consider a new line of work. Somewhere else.”

Flinch, looking and feeling thoroughly miserable. “Like what? Like where?”

Scrope tapped his chin. “Well, you’re clearly detail-oriented. Good at not being seen. And, if you don’t mind me saying, you have a very calming voice.”

“What’s your point?”

“You’d make an excellent notary,” said Scrope, beaming.

Flinch stared at him. “A notary.”

“Well, yes,” Scrope said. “I mean, everyone thinks assassinating is very exciting, but honestly, the world of notary work is far more thrilling than people realise.”

“It is?” Flinch asked in amazement. “How is notary work even remotely thrilling?”

“Well, you get a rubber stamp, for a start.”

Flinch was about to dismiss the whole thing out of hand. But then he thought about it.

A notary.

Some paperwork.

A quiet life.

No one trying to stab him in the back.

Almost no lurking or looming in smelly back alleys.

Very little gore.

Almost no adrenaline needed on a day-to-day basis.

A warm office. With tea making facilities.

His own rubber stamp.

It was… appealing. Oddly.

“Huh,” he said.

And thus, several weeks later, the Guild of Notaries in far-off Bhangbhangduc, a city as far from Ankh-Morpork and the headquarters of the Guild of Assassins as it was possible to get, welcomed a new member: Thaddeus Flinch, an ‘expert’ in contracts, legally binding documents, and making clients very slightly uneasy without them quite knowing why.