Free The Bank Job by Alex Gray Page B

Pringle held up William’s sports bag with two fingers as though it were full of smelly, unwashed kit.
    ‘Yes, that’s mine. Why?’ William began to rise out of his seat.
    ‘Come!’ Pringle ordered, holding the door open with one well-polished shoe. ‘My office.’
    William felt the row of eyes staring at him as he followed the bank manager out of the room and up the dark wood-panelled staircase. What was going on? Why had the manager brought his sports bag from the staff cloakroom? His stomach began to churn, reminding him of the hasty single slice of toast that had been breakfast.
    ‘Close the door behind you,’ Pringle barked at him as he took his seat behind the large mahogany desk, leaving William to stand, legs apart, fists bunched by his side as though on parade, looking down on the smaller man. In the silence that followed, William noticed a fly buzzing at the window, trapped behind the hot glass, the sun shining onto the manager’s balding pate and a faint whiff of something with lavender undertones that might have been furniture polish.
    Outside the restaurants and cafés in Royal Exchange Square would be open for business but all that William could see from where he stood were the ornate carvings on the rooftops.
    ‘You bank with us.’ It was a statement, not a question, and William nodded, not quite knowing what to reply.
    ‘Knocked off early last night?’
    ‘We all did, sir. Mondays begin an hour earlier because of the weekend cash coming in from all the other banks,’ William said, wondering as he did so why the manager was unaware of the working hours of his own staff. Perhaps he was too far removed from the goings-on of the cashiers, those lowly creatures who worked day after day thumbing banknotes in that claustrophobic basement room, windowless for security reasons.
    ‘This
is
your bag?’ Pringle pointed to the holdall where he had dropped it beside his desk.
    ‘Well, I think so. It looks like mine,’ William said, frowning. Then he spotted the frayed handles and the D-ring where his locker key from school had been fixed. ‘Aye, I’m sure that’s mine,’ he added, nodding.
    ‘You’ll know why we have closed the bank this morning,’ Pringle said, glaring at him.
    ‘Someone said there had been a raid?’
    Pringle leaned forward. ‘Two masked gunmen carrying a sports bag,’ he said slowly, never taking his eyes off William’s face. ‘One of them particularly tall. With piercing blue eyes,’ he added.
    Then an accusing finger pointed in William Lorimer’s direction.
    ‘
You
fit that description,’ he hissed between uneven little teeth. ‘And now the police want to speak to you.’
    He didn’t want to do this.
    ‘It’ll be all right,’ the police officer assured him, clapping a heavy hand on Kevin Patterson’s shoulder. ‘Just walk along slowly, take your time. There’s no need for a snap decision.’
    Kevin took a crumpled handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. His shirt was sticking to his back, its armpits soaked through.
    He had already been shown the sports bag. ‘I . . . I really can’t be sure,’ he’d stammered. ‘It
might
be that one. I didn’t really take too much notice.’
    The police officer had smiled encouragingly. ‘Don’t worry about it, Mr Patterson. It’s easy to forget details when you’re under that sort of pressure.’
    But they
wanted
him to remember, Kevin knew that. What if he got it wrong? What if he couldn’t correctly identify the man they had arrested for the robbery? Would he track Kevin down?
    ‘You need to look closely at every man in the line-up, Mr Patterson,’ the policeman told him. ‘When you are certain that you know the right one, simply tap him on the shoulder. Can you do that?’
    He was a coward. Kevin knew that even as he nodded.
I’ll never forget the look in his eyes
, he’d told them afterwards. And they had written that down, asked him to sign the statement.
    And it was true.