left. You can’t prevent this chain being set in motion—and the time from their hitting the alarm button to the police arriving is a matter of minutes: five, seven, maybe only two. Your goal is not to stop them doing this, but to carve out enough time for yourself to get in, out and away again before they do.”
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“With shock,” he answered. “Psychology again, see? You rush in, fire a frightener, point guns around—and the staff are too scared to push alarms, or to do anything!”
His tone had changed now. He’d dropped the breadstick props; his eyes were kind of sparkling, as though lit up by memories of rushing into banks and pointing guns. He sipped his wine again, wiped his lip and continued:
“They’re like bunnies in headlights: frozen. You step in and move them gently away from the counters, get them to lie down. You use their shock to create a…bridge, a…a suspension in which you can operate. A little enclave, a defile.”
I looked across at Naz and raised my eyebrow. He nodded, took his mobile out and tapped its keys. The waiter arrived with our food. He set the venison sausages Samuels had ordered in front of me by mistake. They were grey and wrinkled, like an elephant’s trunk. I imagined trying to steal an elephant and then fence it, get rid of it, just spirit it away.
“Where does it all go?” I mumbled.
“Sorry?” Samuels asked.
“I…nothing,” I said. “Whatever.”
We ate in silence for a while; then Samuels asked:
“So: this bank robbery you want to re-enact. Is it a particular one? One I did?”
I set my knife and fork down and thought about this for a moment. The other two looked at me while I thought. Eventually I told them:
“No, not a particular one. A mix of several ones, real and imaginary. Ones that could happen, ones that have, and ones that might at some time in the future.”
Naz’s phone beeped just then. He scrolled through the display and read aloud:
“In military parlance, a narrow way along which troops can march only by files or with a narrow front, especially a mountain gorge or pass. The act of defiling, a march by files. 1835. Also a verb: to bruise, corrupt. From the French défiler and the Middle English defoul.”
“Very good,” I said. “Very good indeed.”
“Yes,” Naz said. “It’s an excellent term. Marching in files.”
“A defile in time,” I said. “A kink.”
“That too,” said Naz.
“What’s that?” asked Samuels.
I turned to him and said:
“You’re hired.”
Over the next few days we sent people round town looking for banks for us to model our re-enactment on. They were told to pay particular attention to access and escape routes. Corners were considered good spots. Main roads tend to be trafficky, which will slow police cars down. Side roads are small enough to be blocked to prevent your being pursued, and often lead off into mazy streets of residential areas, giving you lots of options. Proximity to police stations is, obviously, undesirable. I had double the number of people search for banks as had searched for my building some months back. Their reports were gathered back at Naz’s headquarters in the blue-and-white building near mine, their findings pinned up on maps and laid out in charts and tables which, needless to say, I entirely ignored.
I found the bank myself, of course. It was in Chiswick, not far from the river. I opened an account there. I put a quarter of a million pounds in it, and was immediately invited to a meeting with the manager. I found reasons to drop in—making deposits and withdrawals, picking up cards, returning forms and so on—almost daily for a week. I had Samuels, Annie and Frank open accounts and had them visit frequently as well, to allow them to familiarize themselves with the bank’s layout. Naz had someone look up the firm of architects that had converted the building and procure a copy of the plans so that we’d get the measurements and dimensions right when we reconstructed the interior. It had a partially carpeted stone floor: I told Frank to memorize not only the floor’s pattern, but also any stains or cracks this and the carpet had on them. Annie bought a hidden camera from a spying-equipment shop in Mayfair and photographed the walls—their notices and posters, where these had been stuck, the little tears or dog-ears they had in them—so that these, just like the space itself, could be replicated accurately.
Constructing