How to Rob a Bank

‘Just saw your girlfriend. In the rec. High-rise Beth. Shame. I thought they were loaded.’

‘What?’

Dave laughed and it sounded like a theremin.

‘You don’t know? Her, her mum, her dad, all moving to a tiny flat in one of the high-rises. Serves her right. Llama’s a bitch.’

‘Karma,’ I said, dropping a shoulder left, then moving right. My winger’s feint deceived Dave and I pushed past Ben.

The high-rise? That couldn’t be right. Beth’s family had money. They had a cinema room, even though the screen had yet to be fitted and it had burnt down. The high-rises towered over the east of town like huge, broken teeth. She couldn’t be living there. No way. She looked like a movie star, I mean, and she’d said they’d moved somewhere with a nice view. She couldn’t have meant there.

If this had been a film, I might have fallen to my knees and lifted my fists to the sky and shouted ‘Noooo!’

What had I done?

Dad’s van, white and with Thomas and Son, Plumbers etc. on the side, was parked outside our house.

Dad was in the front room.

‘I came home early to spend time with my favourite son. Where’ve you been? What d’you want to do?’

I told Dad I didn’t want to do anything. I told him I’d bumped into Beth. I told him I had a headache. Dad’s tone changed gears, shifting down to compassion.

‘What was she up to?’

‘Walking. Probably to the high-rise. Because an idiot burnt down her house.’

Dad’s eyes grew warm. He stretched a hand to my shoulder. It didn’t reach.

‘That’s a lesson about insurance,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard they had no insurance, right? You’ve got to have insurance. We live in an insured world. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? Remember this, son. Insurance.’

How did everyone know everything but me? I should check Facebook more often.

I later found out, on Facebook, that Beth’s dad wasn’t a successful builder after all. He’d spent the family’s money, inherited, building the house I’d destroyed. He’d planned to sell it at a profit, but it turned out nobody wanted to live in a mini version of the White House, not in England anyway. So the family occupied the building as Beth’s dad continued to lower and lower the asking price, until –

‘Do we have insurance?’ I asked.

Dad smiled. ‘We do now.’

I felt the weight of the high-rise across my shoulders. I couldn’t forget Beth’s face as she trudged across the rec. Like your favourite teacher, not angry but disappointed. A deflated Emma Stone. And all because of me.

‘Shall we watch a film?’ I said.

At least I could make him happy.

Dad knew just the thing, he always does: something to take our minds off fires and insurance. He’d recorded it the night before and although it was full of swearwords and violence, it was a straight-up classic. Something I needed to watch for sure.

‘Your English teacher can bang on about Shakespeare and Wordsworth as much as she likes,’ he said. ‘But some films are as important a part of your education.’

‘What’s it called?’ I asked, settling into the sofa next to his warmth. He was still in the bleach-blanched tracksuit bottoms that he’d worn to work. At least he’d taken his boiler suit off. ‘Dog Day Afternoon. It’s based on a true story. I know they all say that, but this one really is. You won’t believe it, but it’s true. And it has Al Pacino before he became a diva.’

We watched the film. And that afternoon, and for the first time ever, Dad changed my life.

Dog Day Afternoon: definitely in my top-ten bank robbery films, maybe even top five. And especially important for being the film that decided how I’d make everything better:

BANK ROBBERY.

I’d rob a bank and I’d make good. I wasn’t sure how much money nice houses cost or suburban banks held, but at the very least we could go shopping and replace all Beth’s stuff. And maybe even pay for her to live somewhere nicer than the high-rise. I’d probably still have enough left over to buy a sports car (and a chauffeur to drive it) and there’d be cash too for Dad to stop work for six months and write the screenplay he always said he had in him when he’d drunk too much. Mum could buy a share in a vineyard or something. I wouldn’t give any money to Rita because she didn’t deserve it.

So long, History coursework and your ‘Why did the USA become involved in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s?’ (30 marks). Hello, master criminal and ‘What’s the most effective way of robbing a bank?’ (£1,000,000).

Best get Googling.

There’s Such a Thing as Being Over-prepared

As with any skilled occupation, robbing a bank requires specialist equipment. The type of specialist equipment not easily obtained by fifteen-year-olds. Specialist equipment like guns, for example. In the night following Dog Day Afternoon, I lay in bed and my blind eyes stared through the darkness and I felt guilty and I thought about stuff.

I thought about using a stun gun. Obviously an actual gun was a non-starter. I mean, I’m an idiot but not that much of an idiot. Could you convince a bank worker to hand over cash in exchange for not being Tasered? And was I mean enough to do that?

I was pretty sure you could buy one online. Not Amazon (unless you lived in the States) but from a dodgier part of the internet: the place Palace buy their centre backs, the dark Web. It’s like Amazon but with illegal stuff and a slightly higher chance of getting arrested.

Getting a stun gun delivered to your own house would be a mistake of course, but as Dave Royston lived round the corner I’d just use his address. It would be amateur-level easy to intercept Brian the German postman or somehow get to the package before Dave, which is exactly what I did two years ago when buying bangers off eBay (fireworks, not sausages). And if it all went wrong? Well, Dave saw himself as a gangster. He’d get his mugshot on the news and everything. I could just imagine the scene …

The suburban road, all drawn curtains and tired trees, quiet except for the slam of car doors as commuters climbed into Ford Fiestas and Nissan Micras. Suddenly the roar of sirens would break that silence as police transit vans pulled up outside Dave’s house. People dressed like video-game police would pour out of the vans, their guns bouncing against their chests as they thrust forward, up the crazy paving of Dave’s front path. The SWAT team would rush Dave’s door and, the next thing you know, Dave is face down on the tarmac with the lead SWAT guy telling him, ‘No one moves around here without my say-so.’

Would I feel sorry for Dave if he were arrested because of a stun gun I’d ordered? Probably not. He had stolen my Lion Bar.

Still, as much as all this would be funny, the sad truth is that only idiots rob banks with guns, even stun guns. I’d done the research like I’d planned my History coursework. On my iPhone, in the toilet, I’d googled ‘armed robbery’. I’d discovered the moment you take a gun to the party, even if it’s a stun gun, the sentences imposed by judges jump higher than a frog full of helium. And the truth is I wouldn’t feel great waving guns around, even if the worse they could do was stun.

The room was thick with steam and thinking. And was a bit stinky TBH.

I don’t need a Taser, I thought. No. I’d use a better weapon to hold up a bank: MY BRAIN!

(But not literally. You know what I mean.)

In Out of Sight, a 1998 film, George Clooney robs a bank using nothing. No accomplices, no guns, nothing. All he does is enter one of those air-conditioned Hollywood banks with old-style ringing phones and tidy desks and he spots a stranger chatting with a bank manager at some polite table. The stranger has a leather briefcase on the floor. Clooney approaches a teller (the American who gives out the cash) and tells them he has an accomplice. He points at the stranger who, for all Clooney knows is chatting about the weather, and says the guy has a handgun in his briefcase and should Clooney give the signal, he’ll pull it out and shoot the bank manager. Of course, it being George Clooney, the teller believes him and hands over an envelope bursting with dollars.

I’m no George Clooney, but, like Clooney, I’m able to walk and talk, most of the time anyway, and that’s all it took for Clooney’s character to rob the bank.

FYI Clooney eventually gets caught. How? His getaway car has a flat battery. As Mr Stones, the coach of the U13 football team used to say: ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ Mr Stones didn’t say much else, apart from ‘It’s the taking part that counts.’

Ensure Your Target Ticks All the Boxes

Location, location, location. The fewer associations you have with your target, the better. Unlike George Clooney, I couldn’t drive. And my parents would notice if I were off catching planes and trains. So, like at school, my geography was limited.

I went on Google Maps, centred my location, and searched for ‘post office’, thinking that a post office would possess less security than a bank. You normally get a Perspex screen and Google says there’s usually a panic button under the counter but what you don’t get are armed guards and drooling Rottweilers. What I had in mind was a Postman Pat-style set-up, with an elderly woman who sits next to a container of lollipops and knits all day. She’d call me ‘sonny’ and offer no physical objection to the robbery. I’d simply be another example of the rotten state of modern youth. Like Al Pacino says in Dog Day Afternoon, these places have insurance. Nobody would be losing out. Granny would have a new story for her bingo friends. Broken Britain. Who cares?

Outside, the rain fell without break from low clouds the colour of failure. Bad weather is a constant during school holidays. When we grow up and get jobs, we’ll be sitting in our offices and it’ll be sweltering outside, guaranteed. Global warming.

Dad was on the sofa watching a Western and scratching himself. He was meant to be unblocking the drain of a house belonging to the parents of a rich kid in the year above, but he couldn’t do much when it was raining. He said this whenever there was the slightest suggestion of moisture in the air, whether the job was inside or out. Either way, it was a pretty lame excuse when you’re a plumber and getting wet was pretty much first on the list of things you’d expect to happen during the working day.

‘Want to join me?’ he said, patting the cushions with the hand that had recently been down his jogging bottoms. ‘It’s only just started. Mum won’t be back for ages. How’s the job search going?’

After my half-hearted application to McDonald’s, Mum and Dad had got it into their heads I was actually applying for jobs, and not only this but having a part-time summer job was, like, the best idea ever.

The edges of my mouth curled downwards. Crazy sounds like someone was breaking up furniture with a pig came from the TV. In a darkened bedroom, a man was hugging a woman. He was wearing a cowboy hat.

‘We can fast-forward the rude bits,’ Dad said, his hands searching for the remote controls as the cowboy grunted. ‘It’s violent and sweary. You’d like it. It’s not all cuddles.’ He paused. ‘Like life really.’

Upstairs, Rita’s movements rolled through the house like teenage thunder. And even though you could hear the rain drumming on the roof, I told Dad I had to go out.

‘To do what?’

‘Homework,’ I said. I looked to the TV. ‘With a girl. And then jobs. You know.’

The naughty cowboy meant I could leave without feeling guilty. Because I was only a kid. The film would corrupt my morals.

The front door was open as I shouted through to Dad, ‘It’s holiday coursework.’

‘Wear a jacket,’ said Dad, defeated by the c-word.

So, with the pre-prepared threatening note in my back pocket, I took a bus to the target, Krazy Prices. I found the old Arsenal shirt Nan had bought me for Xmas. At the time, Dad had said her confusion was a warning sign of dementia, but I honestly think she didn’t know the difference between Palace and Arsenal.

‘They both play in London, don’t they?’ she’d said, biting her false teeth into a mince pie. ‘Don’t be such a fusspot.’

They have CCTV on buses. They have CCTV everywhere, but they have it particularly on buses. If you’re lucky, you might sit on one with its own display and get to stare at people without looking weird. They use these bus images for missing kids: Charlton teenager last seen on the 53. And there’s a grainy black-and-white screen grab that could be anyone with a face, but looks like a ghost, which it kind of is.

My thinking – if the police were to bother searching the bus CCTV for the ballsy teenager who’d emptied a local post office of all its cash, they’d see a kid with an Arsenal shirt and a baseball cap, two things I never wear.

It took three goes with my Oyster but the driver had the Daily Mail open on her lap and didn’t turn her head when I stepped on. The bus smelt of fried chicken. The bottom deck was full of mums with prams and grannies with wheeled shopping baskets, so I climbed upstairs.

I took a seat in the middle. Screwed into the ceiling above the front window was a black hemisphere. Through its glass you could just about make out a camera. I pulled down my cap and dug my chin into my chest. I thought about the post office. About the note. As long as I believed all would be fine, all would be fine.

Rain smudged the windows, bending the vague shapes of the outside world out of focus. I stared at nothing and tried to think positive thoughts.

The rain’s intensity faded as the bus dropped me off only a few metres away from the post office. Krazy Prices looked to be a counter at the back of a corner shop. The Guardian sponsored its awning: a middle-class neighbourhood. I checked for the note in my back pocket, the key to today’s successful robbery. After confirming it was there, I took a deep breath, which tightened my chest even more, and stepped forward to push through the entrance.

Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong

An old-fashioned bell rang and the door almost hit an old man waiting at the back of a queue that ran for six bodies to the counter. Alongside a Perspex-protected screen was the unprotected newsagent’s counter, at which nobody queued. A woman in a sari sat on a stool and watched a tiny television playing loudly.

The line for the post desk stood tightly between a greeting cards stand and a magazine display. Close enough to the old man’s cream jacket to smell his Old Spice, my eyes darted around the space, searching for a camera. I couldn’t see one, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Like God. And farts.

Water dripped from my cap’s brim. The bright red of the Arsenal shirt had turned burgundy. With my empty stomach rumbling, I wondered whether I shouldn’t give it up and go home for food. I had 8p in my pocket. Maybe the bored-looking woman would pity me and sell a single boiled sweet for a stack of coppers?

The queue moved forward. A man with a huge beard walked through to the door, saying ‘Excuse me’ over and over as he left. What would happen when the note was read? The question didn’t make my chest feel less tight, but it did force my hand to my back pocket.

I hadn’t printed my message because I knew they could trace printers. Instead I’d written it left-handed. It had taken a few efforts before I was happy that my block capitals were legible. It would have been embarrassing to be asked to read out particular words and also against the whole point of the note.

The queue moved forward again. I folded the note in half as a woman pushed a toddler through. A rush of air and the doorbell sounded, but nobody joined the queue. Remember: I was doing this for all the right reasons. In a funny way it was actually the right thing to do. My heart beat double fast as I reopened the note. The paper was damp, but the ink hadn’t run.

PUT ALL YOUR MONEY INTO THIS BAG. DO NOT TAKE BANKNOTES FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE DRAWER. DO NOT SOUND THE ALARM. THE PERSON BEHIND ME IS READY TO SHOOT YOUR ASSISTANT IF I GIVE THE SIGNAL. IF YOU TALK TO THEM, THEY WILL SHOOT YOU.

I refolded the note and shoved it back into my pocket, tight between my backside and my wallet. I’d forgotten my loot bag. Another customer left and the queue moved forward. There were now three people in front and still nobody behind. What could I do for a bag? I looked from the aisle of magazines to the greeting cards. On the bottom shelf was a bag. It was A4 size, pink, and had an image of a Frozen princess. It wouldn’t hold much money, but it was better than nothing. I leant across to grab it.

‘Watch yourself,’ said a departing man.

There were now two people until the front desk. I couldn’t believe for such a busy post office no one else had entered. The plan was a non-starter if nobody stood behind me. The note would make no sense. Would that be the end of the world?

Think of Beth. Think of all her stuff. Destroyed. By you.

I pulled down my baseball cap even further. The brim squelched wet between thumb and forefinger. If I pulled it any lower, I wouldn’t be able to see.

The voices from the TV began to sing. A Bollywood tune – all strings and sitar. It was probably a love song but all it did for me was to excite the bumblebees of anxiety that buzzed against my ribs.

Look, if nobody joined the queue, I’d take it as clear evidence that stealing money was a bad idea. There had been enough clues already.

The next customer left. There was now only one person between me and destiny. As he asked how much it would cost to send a first-class letter to New York, America, I peered round his shoulder at the person behind the Perspex screen. Up until this point, I’d not looked because I didn’t want a heart attack.

It was an extremely old woman, possibly the mother or grandmother of the bored sari-wearing TV-watching woman. Her hands shook as she turned over books of stamps. Her hair fell in cotton wisps across a deeply lined forehead. I stopped looking, instead focusing on the void of the old man’s back. Even though a grandmother had been my ideal target, now I was faced with one the nerves gripping my heart were joined by a tremendous churning of my stomach – guilt (and hunger).

Because, essentially, I’m a nice guy.

The door opened. I didn’t turn at its sound, but remained facing forward. Footsteps sounded across the tight space. A presence. Someone had joined the queue. I daren’t turn round. I didn’t want to jinx it. Instead I ignored all the strange insect feelings coming from my body, and I pulled out the note.

George Clooney, Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood.

Dylan Thomas.

Maybe I should just go home?

I remembered the rain. I remembered the fire.

I gritted my teeth and jutted my jaw. I was no longer a south-east London loser teenager. I was a Hollywood hero. All I needed to do was hand over a note and the next thing you know I’d be walking out with a Disney bag full of cash. The old woman wouldn’t care. She’d seen enough in this world to no longer be surprised by anything. Come on. It wasn’t her money.

And then … a hand on my shoulder. Before I turned I understood what I’d see: the police! Because the game was up. They’d known all along. What had I been thinking?

Be Prepared to Use Your Imagination

‘Dylan Thomas! Writing any poetry?’

It wasn’t the police. It was worse. It was Miss Riley, my old Year Six teacher. Gulp. Her hair was as mad as the last day at primary. She was grinning full beam and holding a Sainsbury’s bag for life. Her perfume, smelling like dying flowers, made me remember spelling tests, circle time and pleas to stop chatting.

‘Not yet,’ I said, somehow managing not to swear, my voice two octaves higher than usual.

‘How’s your mother? What year are you in now? You’ve heard about Beth’s house of course? It was in the News Shopper. She was ever so good at football, bless her.’

I didn’t know which question to answer, so I said, ‘Yes’.

I had the required person behind me, as referenced by my note, but as it was someone I knew, I’d have to chuck it all in.

Wouldn’t I?

Ahead of me, the cream-shirted man asked if he might also send a letter to South Africa.

‘I shouldn’t really be saying this, but they’re lucky to get a flat. Housing is prioritised for people in need, I understand, but why there’s got to be social housing in London, I don’t know, not when house prices are what they are. But you’re too young.’

How would I get Miss Riley to stop talking? She had a weird, faraway look in her eyes. I should just walk away. I’d drop the Frozen bag and jog on. I couldn’t rob the place with her there.

‘How can I help, sir?’ asked the old woman.

She had a warm, caring voice. Her eyes, I noticed, were the colour of chocolate. She’d called me ‘sir’. I don’t think I’d ever been called ‘sir’ before. Silver glasses hung delicately round her neck.

‘Umm,’ I said, stepping up to place the Frozen bag on the counter because my plan in the instant was to pretend to want to buy the bag.

‘You didn’t need to queue for this, sweetheart. You could have paid at the till. This is the postal counter.’ The old woman had pulled on her glasses and was studying the bag through the glass. ‘But that’s £2.99, please,’ she said.

To make my show of having no money all the more convincing, I went to pull my wallet from my jeans. But, would you know it, the note came with the wallet, gliding softly and terribly to the floor. I bent to retrieve it, but thumped my forehead against the counter and knocked my cap to the floor.

‘Aggh,’ I said, staggering backwards into a display of birthday cards.

Miss Riley swept forward to grab the note.

‘No!’ I said, one hand at my head, the other pointing.

‘Mind yourself,’ said Miss Riley, not giving the note to me, but sliding it through the gap between the screen and counter because, obviously, today wasn’t the day for catching any breaks.

‘You want to be sending this, do you?’ asked the old woman. ‘You’ll need an envelope.’

Miss Riley laughed. ‘Get the boy some paracetamol too! Is your head okay?’

It properly hurt, not just because of my bruised skull, but also because of my growing fear; safe behind the security screen, the old woman was slowly unfolding the paper.

‘No,’ I said, bending to retrieve my cap. ‘Don’t read it.’

‘Do you need an envelope, Dylan?’ asked Miss Riley. ‘They won’t be expensive.’

Smiling, the old woman read. She looked up from the note. Her smile faded. She frowned. Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.

‘I can’t make head nor tail of it,’ she said. ‘Is this your writing? How old are you?’

‘Everything okay?’ asked Miss Riley. ‘I used to be this boy’s teacher. Let me help.’

The old woman gestured Miss Riley forward.

A tiny whining sound emerged from my mouth. Was this actually happening?

‘My eyes,’ she said. ‘Can you read any of this?’

Miss Riley craned her neck to make sense of the note the old lady held up.

‘Well, that first line says to put all your money in the bag. Is this from your mum, Dylan?’