Professional Opinion
by Iain Rowan

I’d been standing in the bank queue for five minutes when Margaret Thatcher came in waving a sawn-off shotgun.
"Nobody move," he shouted and everyone in the bank turned round. There was shocked silence for a moment and then a little boy said "Mummy, why is that man wearing a witch mask?" His mother clamped her hand over they boy’s mouth and pulled him in close to her legs. The stubby barrels of the shotgun wavered around the room, wobbling over the frightened customers standing like statues, swinging back to cover the staff who sat motionless behind plate glass. I stood in the queue, hands down by my sides, my bag at my feet, doing nothing that would startle the gunman. I could handle this – if anyone in the bank could deal with this it would be me, prepared by years of professional experience – but I had to choose the moment. I breathed in and out, nice and slow and easy.
The gunman walked forward, the shotgun still moving from side to side like a dog trying to find a scent.
"Nobody move, this is a gun."
I don’t think that this came as much of a surprise to anyone. I wondered whether the man was about to announce that he was a bank robber too, just in case we had mistaken him for a window cleaner.
"Nobody move, nobody gets hurt, OK? Just don’t move." 
Not good son, I thought. You sound like you’re pleading. First-timer, got to be. Probably owes a couple of grand in gambling debts to someone nasty, been told that if he doesn’t come up with the money by today he’ll have his legs broken. I’ve seen a few like that in my line of work, and they’re always the dangerous ones. They’re nervous, they’ve often either stopped in a pub for some liquid courage beforehand or they’re twitchy with speed and paranoia. Chances are they’ve never used a gun before. A recipe for disaster. Some retired colonel decides to play the hero, some frightened bank clerk faints and drops to the floor suddenly and without even knowing it a finger closes on the trigger. If it’s a lucky day a big chunk gets blown out of a wall, fragments of posters encouraging poor people to get into more debt at wonderful rates floating to the floor in shreds while everybody’s ears ring and someone pisses their pants. If it’s not a lucky day – well.
The gunman moved right up to the counter and pointed the shotgun at the little old man in the front of the queue. The mask turned towards the counter and said:
"Fill a bag with money. Now. Do what I say and no one gets hurt. Now, do it now."
The cashier nodded, eyes wide open, keen trying to get her message of co-operation across.
"Have you brought a bag?" she asked.
"A what? Have I what? No I haven’t brought a fucking bag. Have you not got bags? Jesus. Come on, you must have a fucking bag. What about those sack things you keep the fucking money in?"
The cashier busied herself behind the counter, and the gunman turned round again, Thatcher’s prominent nose sweeping round the room as he checked that we were all behaving ourselves. I was standing very still, waiting for the moment. It would probably come when he was on his way out, much safer that way. I didn’t want to put any of these people at risk.
The cashier was pushing half-filled sacks of notes through the counter, and the gunman was grabbing them with one hand, holding the shotgun in another. That would be a help when the moment came. I couldn’t believe that he was so stupid as to not bring a bag. My career had given me an insight into how many bank robbers worked – and I always made a point of watching the CCTV footage when they showed it on the TV as part of an appeal for information – but I don’t think I had ever seen one this stupid. I was confident he’d be a loner, no friend waiting and chain-smoking in a getaway car outside. He probably had a push-bike with a flat-tyre, judging by his performance so far. After he had grabbed the third bag of money, he tried to get another one, but then the first one he had picked up fell out of his hand. He swore, and looked around the room. The twin tunnels of the shotgun wobbled towards me.
"You," he said. "The bag. Give me your bag."
I nodded. Not really the time to argue. I slowly bent down and picked up my holdall, keeping eye contact with him all the time.
"Just slide it along the floor to me, no funny stuff."
I slid it along the floor to him. No funny stuff. He put the bags of money down on the counter, unzipped my holdall, and tipped the contents out on to the floor. It was almost empty, just a cheese sandwich which skittered a couple of feet across the polished floor, and a Mars Bar which came to rest near the little boy and his mother. The kid looked down and then looked at me. I winked at him and nodded, lifted a hand slightly to say wait, when this is over, then yes.
The gunman finished stuffing the money into my holdall. He swung the shotgun around the room again.
"Nobody move. Stay where you are for five minutes. I’ll be watching, mind, so don’t move." Yeah, yeah, I thought. Of course you will. He backed away towards the door. As he pushed his way out he was already stuffing the gun under his jacket. Now it was time.
As soon as the door was half closed behind him I ran for it. He would be busy making sure that the gun was out of sight, that there weren’t sixty armed police waiting outside for him, busy looking for his car if he had one, pulling out keys. As I shouldered the door out of the way, I saw that I hadn’t been far off the mark. He was bending over a mud-spattered motorbike, trying to pull my bag over his shoulder. I pulled the revolver from my jacket pocket as I ran and he hadn’t even turned his head halfway towards me before I jabbed the barrel hard into the back of his neck.
"Don’t even consider moving," I said. I reached around him with my free hand and pulled the shotgun from under his jacket. I broke it open: it wasn’t loaded.
"Don’t hurt me," he said.
"Shut up." I was feeling irritable. I’d spent too long standing in the warm bank and my head was itching like mad under the wig. I pulled the bag from his shoulder.
"Lie down," I said, and he did, his arms and legs trembling so much that he looked as if he were trying to swim through the road. I kicked him in the side once, not very hard, just for my own satisfaction.
"You fucking amateurs, you make me ashamed. You’ve just got no pride in your work. Useless. Absolutely fucking useless, you make us all look bad," I said, and then I turned, pulled the holdall onto my shoulder, and ran for the car where Davey was waiting for me, keeping the engine running, opening the passenger door as he saw me coming across the street. 

Iain Rowan  lives in the north-east of England, near to the sea but not near enough. "Professional Opinion" is the first crime story he has written; in other genres he has recently had acceptances from All Hallows magazine and the Darkness Rising anthology. He also contributes occasional 
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