Free Cold Comfort by Quentin Bates Page B

a few minutes to wait. He perched awkwardly on an uncomfortable plastic chair, sweating in his thick parka, knowing that what he was about to do was wrong. He badly wanted the toilet, but that would mean missing his turn and having to get another number and queue all over again.
    “Ninety-eight.”
    A hard-faced lady in a fur coat stepped quickly past him and a blast of wet air disturbed the bank’s controlled atmosphere before being suddenly cut off as the door eased itself shut again. Diddi gulped.
    “Ninety-nine.”
    He looked up and saw that the youngest of the three cashiers was waiting for him, a woman with thick brown hair and a toothy smile. Diddi quailed and stood up, stared at the desk in front of him and looked up to focus on the girl’s teeth. He knew she was saying something, but he didn’t hear it for the roaring in his head.
    He fumbled with his parka and hauled down the zip to put in a hand and pull out the carpet knife that he had been careful to keep inside, terrified that he would cut his fingers.
    “One hundred.”
    The cashier at the next desk had seen nothing, but the one facing him was staring in disbelief. Diddi looked straight at her and in a moment of clarity took in the heavy mask of make-up on her face that wrinkled as her mouth opened.
    “Quiet,” Diddi ordered. “Please. Give me money. N-n-now,” he instructed, trying to sound as if he meant it, and then remembering what he had been told.
    “Don’t make a noise and don’t make any alarms go off,” he ordered, mind on autopilot. He stuffed the crumpled carrier bag that had been in his pocket through the gap. “Put it in there,” he instructed. “If you don’t mind,” he added as an afterthought without having a clear idea why.
    The girl recovered her composure and quickly busied herself behind the desk. Diddi realized he had forgotten to tell her to keep her hands where he could see them, and felt suddenly that things were going wrong, telling himself that he shouldn’t panic. The woman at the next desk was staring at him in amazement, and the man in the green jacket she was serving had realized that her attention wasn’t on him any more, but on the young man in a parka with the pudding-basin haircut and bewilderment in his eyes.
    “What’s happening?” the man ventured, and Diddi raised the knife, trying to look threatening.
    “Please, don’t say anything, and keep calm,” the woman at the desk murmured as the carrier bag appeared in front of Diddi, stuffed with notes. He picked it up with his left hand and backed away from the counter, keeping the two cashiers and the man in front of him.
    “One hundred and one.”
    The third cashier still had not noticed what had taken only a matter of seconds, but squawked as she looked up and saw Diddi standing in front of them uncertainly, knife held out.
    “Look here, young feller,” the man with the green jacket was saying in the same authoritative tone that Diddi had hated hearing at school. “Look, give me the knife and everything will be all right. You understand?”
    Diddi backed away as the man advanced, the stern look on his face clashing with his false smile. He proffered a hand for Diddi to put the knife into, when suddenly Diddi remembered what he had been told.
    “No, f-f-fuck off! Leave me alone!” he yelled, slashing wildly and turning to run. He registered the door swinging to behind him and the shock of cold air hitting his face outside as a shrill alarm began to ring somewhere in the distance. He raced round the corner and along the street before remembering his instructions. He cut down a footpath and emerged in a street of quiet houses where a battered red car waited.
    Panting uncontrollably, he collapsed into the passenger seat. The car was moving before he had even closed the door.
    “OK?” asked the denim-clad, thin-faced driver as they stopped politely at the intersection to join the main road towards town. He smiled at Diddi cowering in the seat as