Читать книгу You Have Been Murdered! - Michael Scopus - Страница 12

London, England

David and Gazza are sitting in the silver C Class Mercedes that Gazza had ‘acquired’ last week and kept in Reggie’s rented lockup garage on the local council housing estate. David keeps the engine purring and they both sip from take away coffees in Starbucks paper cups that David had ‘grabbed on the way’. The rain is falling softly and is brushed away from the windscreen intermittently by a silent swish of the windscreen wipers. They watch in the car’s wing mirrors as people enter and exit the Santander Bank twenty yards behind the car. Gazza decides the time is right and turns to David.

“So, look, it’s like I said, the response time for the armed fuzz16 is eight minutes, anything that shows up before that is not going to want to tackle me with this.”

Gazza nodded to the AK47 assault rifle held between his knees, the butt of which he had placed on the floor of the car.

“Six minutes we agreed.” David reminded him. He took his watch off his wrist and set the timer function to zero.

“Yeah six minutes, you just keep the engine running, Davy boy.” Gazza playfully slapped him twice on the cheek.

Gazza wrapped the sackcloth around the gun and stepped out of the car and pulled down the rubber mask of Arnold Schwarzenegger over his face.

He pointed the gun through the window at David.

Exaggerating the Schwarzenegger accent, he teased. “Ahl bee bahk!”

“Nutter.” David mumbled under his breath and sank lower in his seat pulling his Spurs cap down over his eyes as Gazza swaggered off towards the bank. As Gazza entered the bank door, David started the timer function on his watch and placed it on the dashboard.

Gazza swung open the door of the bank, marched in and brought the gun up towards the lone young girl at the only open counter who jumped up and threw up her hands.

“That’s right, it’s a robbery!” Gazza barked. “Don’t touch any alarms sweetheart.”

Gazza swung the gun around at the handful of customers in the bank. “Now everyone, DOWN ON THE FLOOR!”

Everyone stood in silence and raised their hands slightly, purposely avoiding eye contact with Gazza.

“NOW!” barked Gazza.

Everyone quickly and quietly sat down on the floor keeping their hands raised.

The manager came out of his office. “What’s all this noise . . . ?” He squinted his eyes and adjusted his glasses as Arnold Schwarzenegger turned and pointed a gun directly at him.

“Oh, I see . . . ” he muttered as he feebly raised his hands.

Gazza grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around and placed the gun behind him with the barrel in the nape of his neck.

“Now listen to me, everyone!” Gazza announced. “There are three simple rules: Anyone sets off an alarm, everyone dies. Anyone tries to escape, everyone dies. Anyone fails to cooperate . . . ” He shook the manager roughly by the shoulder. “ . . . what do you think, Mr. Manager?” Gazza demanded.

“Er, everyone dies?” The manager offered weakly.

“That’s right!” Bellowed Gazza. “So, the only way we all get out of this alive, is if we all cooperate. So now Mr. Manager, you have exactly three minutes to fill this sack.” Gazza shoved the manager towards the cashier door. “GO!”

16. Fuzz—British English slang for Police.