ROBYN AND MARION

1

“Morning Sleepyhead!” Marion plonked the mug of tea down on her husband Steven’s bedside table.
A shock of ginger hair appeared from under the duvet and he yawned, rubbing the sleep from his long lashes. He propped himself up on one elbow and took a sip. “Morning Baby.”
“What’s the plan for your day off today?”
“Oh, I dunno…even though the shop’s closed I’ll probably go in and catch up with some of the repair work whilst there’s no customers…”
She took off her dressing gown, hung it on the back of the wardrobe door and stepped into her midwife’s uniform. Bending down to see her reflection in the dressing table mirror she hurriedly pulled her hair up into a scrunchie and applied a coat of lipstick.
“Your bum looks good in that!”
She turned, grinning. “So you still fancy me then, even after eight years of marriage?”
“Absolutely. And if you’ve got ten minutes to spare, I’ll show you just how much.”
She laughed. “Ha ha. Nice try! But my shift starts in half an hour. I’ll make it up to you tonight!”
She bent and kissed him. He heard her footsteps down the stairs, the front door slam, and the car engine as she headed off to work. He rolled out of bed and stepped over to the window. Outside it was drizzling gently. Perfect. It was going to be a busy day.

The woman strode purposefully along the busy pavement, each step revealing the briefest glimpse of a slim, stockinged leg protruding from her trench coat where it was unbuttoned below the belt, buckled tightly at her narrow waist. Her long platinum blonde hair fell in soft waves over the collar, but was substantially hidden by her umbrella, held low over her head to protect from the steady rain. Over one shoulder she clasped a large, empty, black leather tote bag. Incongruously, given the weather, she wore a pair of designer sunglasses whose frames concealed most of her features but also served to make even more prominent her scarlet painted lips.

She stopped at the bank, where a member of staff – a young man only around sixteen or seventeen who she’d seen on her previous visits – held open the door whilst she shook out her umbrella.
“Good afternoon miss. Will you be needing a cashier today?”
“Oh, I think so, yes.”
“There’s one free on the left” he pointed.
“Thank you.” She smiled, and he blushed, almost to the colour of her lips.
The cashier was perhaps only a year or two older.
“How can I help you miss?”
“Oh, I’d like to make a withdrawal. A rather large one.” She handed him the note, and his face turned as white as his colleague’s had been red a moment earlier.
“Follow that to the letter. Or I’ll shoot your dick off.” She smiled sweetly and handed him her tote bag.

She counted slowly down from seventy five as she watched him bundle notes into the bag. When she reached zero she told him to stop and pass her the bag. She turned and had begun to walk back towards the exit when she heard a loud crack from above. She flinched and looked up, involuntarily, right into the lens of a CCTV camera that, she was absolutely positive, hadn’t been there when she’d made her final reconnaissance visit three days previously.
“Shit!” she mouthed, audibly.

She brushed past the young man at the door and exited the bank, pulling up her collar to cover her hair, and pulling down her umbrella so that the spokes of its frame were touching her head. She stepped onto the pavement and did her best to merge into the crowd of commuters making their way at the end of the day to the main railway station. Her heart was pounding in her chest and it was all she could do to stop herself breaking into a run. She dug her nails into the flesh of her palm. Calm down! Calm down! A police car went past, its siren blaring. She turned her head away and stumbled into a man walking in the opposite direction. He apologized profusely but she ignored him and kept walking. Ahead of her the pavement was less busy and she could see two policemen running towards her. She stopped. The woman behind her crashed into her and cursed. The policemen were closer now. She felt even more conspicuous standing still; an island in the ocean of hurrying, rain sodden, pedestrians, so she began to walk again. This was it, she thought. This was where it all ended. She saw herself standing there in the rain, in handcuffs. Being bundled into the back of a squad car, an officer’s hand on her head. She braced herself for their arrival. Ten yards. Seven. Three. And then, they were past. She almost fainted in relief but she couldn’t stop. Not yet. She followed the crowds into the station. Between WH Smith and Boots there was a small alcove where she knew there was no CCTV coverage, and she stepped into that. She breathed, for what felt like the first time since leaving the bank. She looked at her watch. Two minutes. She counted to herself again, down from one-twenty. Nothing. She scanned the concourse anxiously and then, there it was. A large delivery lorry bringing the evening newspapers to the retail outlets. She stepped into its shadow, hidden from the cameras as it trundled slowly through the station. Twenty, then thirty yards. Reaching the left luggage lockers she relaxed slightly. There was no coverage here. Taking a key from her trenchcoat pocket she opened one of the lockers and lifted out a large North Face duffel bag. From here, another fifteen yards, also uncovered by CCTV, to the all gender station toilet. She stepped inside, closed and locked the door behind her and slumped back against it, panting in great lungfuls of air. Exactly twenty minutes later, Steven Randall exited the toilet, carrying the duffel bag over one shoulder.

2

The following morning Steve was out of sorts. He kept replaying yesterday’s events; concerned that the images of the blonde in the bank from the CCTV would now be with the police, and disappointed that his planning, which he’d thought had been so meticulous, had let him down. More than anything he wanted to unburden himself and tell everything to Marion, but he knew if he did that she’d become an accomplice.

Marion was already in when he got home that evening and he looked forward to seeing her welcoming smile. But her face was like thunder as she thrust the evening paper towards him. “BLONDE BOMBSHELL STRIKES AGAIN” was the headline, above a photo, clearly sourced from the bank’s CCTV.
“She looks a lot like your twin sister, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t have a…” he began, but she knew that.
“The robbery yesterday. On your day off. The robbery three weeks ago. Also on your day off. And the one before that too. Her chin’s the exact same shape as yours. Her nose too. And she’s got that tiny little mole on the side of her lip, just the same as you. What the fuck, Steve?”
He stood with the paper in his hands, staring at the photograph. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
“Why?” she was speaking louder and more urgently now “Why would you do this? Are we not happy? I mean we’re never going to be millionaires, but we do ok. Why would you want to risk all of that?” She paused, as though waiting for an answer, but Steve just stood there, staring at the newspaper.
“Where’s the money?”
He looked up, confused for a moment. “I gave it away.”
“You did what? Who to?”
“The hospice down the road. The youth club. The women’s refuge. A few other places.”
She stared at him for what felt like an age. “This stops right now”
He didn’t reply.
“This stops right now, Steven Randall. Promise me.”
He looked up from the newspaper, slowly, afraid of the intensity of her gaze. He spoke softly. “I haven’t done Central Bank yet.”
Her hands went up in the air, as though she’d been hit by a bullet. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Steve! Is that what this is about? Two years since they made you redundant and you still can’t let it go? And you’re willing to jeopardise all this?” she gestured around her. “just for some stupid revenge?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Just fuck off Steve. Go. Go, please. I can’t…I can’t get my head around this. Go. I don’t want to see you right now. Go!”

3

Detective Sergeant John Littler was a big bear of a man whose lumbering gait and frequent clumsiness belied a sharp intellect. He’d joined East Midlands Police twenty six years ago. He’d been young and enthusiastic then – married to the job, his ex-wife had said when they’d divorced ten years later. But the increasing bureaucracy over the years, and his growing sense that most of his time now seemed to be spent apprehending people whose circumstances had forced them into a life of crime, rather than what he called ‘real’ criminals had turned him into a cynic. He was still a good copper, though. Little happened in Nottingham that he didn’t know about through his carefully established network of informers built up over the years, and his experience had given him a deep intuition that often ran far in advance of the actual evidence on a case.

Littler had just arrived in the station and was about to sit at his desk when his assistant DC Paul Naylor, newly promoted to CID and still, in Littler’s view ‘wet behind the ears’ popped his head out from behind his monitor.
“Chief was asking for you.”
Littler groaned. “Did he say what about?”
Naylor shook his head.

“Good Morning Sir, you wanted to see me?”
The Chief Inspector looked up from the report he was writing. “Littler. Yes, sit down”. He passed across the desk a copy of the same newspaper with which Marion had confronted Steve the previous evening. “Know anything about this?”
Littler looked at the paper without picking it up. “Not a lot, sir. All of the usual suspects we’d expect to be involved in something like this are accounted for and the word on the street is it’s a newbie.”
The Chief Inspector raised an eyebrow. “The Chief Super’s had our local MP bending her ear last night. Apparently he’s had some bigwig from the bank threatening to fund the opposition at the next election if it doesn’t get sorted. Look into it, will you?” He returned to writing his report.
Littler didn’t move. The Chief Inspector looked up again. “Is there anything else?”
“Sir. So what would you like me to put on hold so I can pick this up? There’s the murder of the 23 year old nurse I could drop, or perhaps the rapist – what is it, six victims so far?”
“You know damn well I’m asking you to do this as well as, not instead of…”
“Only I don’t see our wonderful local MP giving a shit about either of those cases, oh no. But when the banks say jump…”
“Littler, just bloody well get on with it will you?”

4

After Marion had kicked him out, Steve had spent the night on the sofa at the back of his repair shop. He’d left without a change of clothes, barely slept at all and the following morning again found him distracted as he attempted to replace a broken hinge on a freezer. The bell above the shop door rang and he shouted “Be with you in a minute.” When he looked up, Marion was standing in front of him.

“I’m sorry, baby, I…” he started, but she held up her hand to stop him.
“Listen” she said. She took a breath and began to speak. “When I fell in love with you, it was because you were kind, and generous, and thoughtful. If you’d taken that money and kept it…well, we’d be getting divorced right now. But what you did – giving it away like that…you’re still the same man and I still love you just as much…” a tear formed and fell across her cheek.
“Oh, Marion, I…” he took a step towards her.
“Wait. I’m not finished.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I know this thing you’ve got with Central…this, this itch, this need to get back at them. It’s not going to go away, is it?”
He shook his head slowly.
She sniffed again. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We rob them. But this time it’s us, not just you. You let me help.”
“Marion, I…”
“Or that’s it for us.”
He nodded. “OK. But one condition. It’s me, and me alone, that goes into that bank. You can help plan, be the lookout, whatever. But you can’t come in. That way if I’m caught it’s just me that takes the rap.”
“Fine”. She wiped her eyes and smiled softly. Steve stepped toward her and held her in his arms and kissed her gently.
She smiled again, a sparkle in her eyes this time. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking…”

Two weeks later they were both sat in the shop window of a café opposite the Central Bank on Nottingham High Street. Steve was wearing a brown tweed suit with a checked shirt and wool tie. On top of that a green Barbour jacket. A cloth cap on his head, and below that two thick, hairy, ginger eyebrows were glued over his own finer, thinner brows. A similarly coloured moustache and beard combination almost covered the rest of his face.

He scratched at the fake moustache. “Jesus, this thing’s itchy…”
“Stop it!” she hissed, under her breath “You’ll pull it off!”
He lowered his hand to his leg, and scratched firmly at his calf “And these trousers are just as bad…”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” she admonished him again and then stopped, looking intently out of the window. “Wait! Watch! Here we go!”
The large plate glass window of the café framed the action that was about to take place outside almost like a proscenium arch at a theatre. From stage left a woman appeared, wearing a trenchcoat, carrying an umbrella, her platinum blonde hair just visible below its canopy.
Steve exclaimed. “Wait! What? Who’s that?”
“My sister.”
“But…”
“It’s ok. Watch.”
The woman arrived at the door of the bank and entered. Marion looked at her watch. Exactly thirty seconds later, far too quickly for a robbery to have taken place Steve noted, she appeared again and continued her walk from left to right as they observed her from the café. She was around thirty yards along the street when a man emerged from the bank and began to follow her.
“Police!” Marion whispered.
A tram entered the scene from stage left, overtaking the man and heading in the same direction as the woman. The tram stop was around fifty yards in front of her. She arrived at the stop at exactly the same time as the tram, and stepped on board.
“Good girl, sis!” Marion breathed. “Now go, tram!”
The man following the blonde saw what had happened and broke into a run.
“Go! Tram! Come on!” Marion urged.
The man closed on the tram. Twenty yards, then ten. At the last minute the tram pulled away and the man stopped, hands on knees.
Marion turned to Steve. “Right. That’s the police out of the way. Your turn now. Good luck!”
She kissed him. He stood up, taking an old battered brown briefcase in one hand and left the café.

5

The briefcase in one hand, a North Face duffel that Marion had left in the luggage locker that morning in the other, Steve used his shoulder to gently push open the door to the all gender toilet at the train station. Dropping the bags on the floor, he closed and locked the door behind him. He wasted no time in tearing off the eyebrows, moustache and beard, splashing his face with cold water and then, unbuckling his belt, he kicked off the tweed trousers and breathed a sigh of relief.

Bending down, he unzipped the duffel and reached inside. His hand felt a piece of velvet fabric and he pulled it out. It was a mini-dress, forest green in colour, off the shoulder, long sleeved. A note was pinned to it.

‘Surprise! I hope you like it! I’ve been dying to meet your alter-ego! I’ve booked a table at that new French place we walked past last week. See you there at 7. Love, M. x
P.S. Probably not a good idea to be seen out as a blonde just now – besides I think you’ll look much prettier with your natural colouring.
P.P.S I don’t know if you’ve given her a name already, but if not ‘Robyn’ seems quite appropriate, haha! X.’

He reached back into the bag. There was a long, coppery-red wig in there, some lingerie, heels, a bag with make up. A green velvet clutch bag that matched the dress. He discarded the remainder of his male clothing hurriedly.

The basque was satin and boned, it’s tight embrace reassuring and comforting. The stockings were gossamer-thin and nude, caressing his legs as much as the harsh tweed had irritated them. He stepped into the dress, its satin lining gliding over his skin as he drew it into place, sliding his arms into the long sleeves and tugging the hem to mid thigh.

The colours of the make up were different to when he’d been blonde, but the hours he’d spent practicing at Marion’s dressing table had given him the skill to adapt. Foundation and powder; bronze blush to define his cheekbones, a simple, almost nude pink lipstick and then a dark chocolate smokey liner and shadow to highlight his best feature – his big brown eyes and long lashes.

The wig was a perfect match for his own hair. He knew exactly how he wanted to wear it. He’d never tried an up-do before and it needed a you tube tutorial and several attempts to get the soft, loose, informal style that he wanted, fine tendrils hanging down at each cheek. Looking in the mirror there she was. Robyn.

Previously when he’d dressed as The Blonde he’d though of himself as an actor playing a role – using props like the sunglasses and the bright red lipstick to define a particular character. Now those props had gone Robyn was stripped back to her fundamental nature. Here, in a simple, elegant minidress with understated make up and her natural colouring she looked at the woman in the mirror and saw herself. The Blonde had been confident; almost brash with how she’d dealt with the staff in the bank. Robyn, her shoulders and neck naked and accentuated by her up-do, her long, almost naked legs accentuated by her tall heels, felt vulnerable and feminine, and yet somehow also grounded and content, as though, after a long and arduous journey, she’d arrived home.

She put her lipstick and phone into her clutch bag. A copper coloured taffeta wrap lay at the bottom of the duffel and she took it out and wrapped it softly around her shoulders. Packing the male clothing together with the briefcase into the now empty duffel she stepped outside and placed it into the locker. She looked at her phone – the restaurant Marion had suggested meeting in was maybe five minutes walk away. She took a deep breath and stepped out across the station concourse, her heels clicking on the hard granite of the paving as she walked.

Marion had arrived at the rendezvous point an hour ahead of time and had already worked her way nervously through two thirds of a bottle of champagne. She watched transfixed as Robyn arrived and the maitre’d escorted her to the table. Robyn handed him her shawl, her fingertips resting lightly on his forearm as she gave her thanks. She smoothed her dress and sat down. But so transfixed had Marion been that she failed to notice the large man lumbering behind Robyn and following her to the table.

6

Detective Sergeant John Littler sat hunched in the driving seat of his Ford Focus four doors down from the bank on the opposite side of the road. He’d only been there an hour when the blonde walked past. He tapped out a one word text - ‘incoming’ - to DC Paul Naylor, who was inside the bank. He watched her as she made her way along the pavement towards the bank entrance – there was something different about her he couldn’t quite put his finger on compared to the woman in the CCTV footage. Only a few seconds later – far too quickly for a robbery to have taken place he noted – the woman came back out and continued to walk away from him, towards the tram stop. Another few seconds after that he watched Naylor come out of the bank and begin to follow her. The events unfolded just as they had for Steven and Marion, only a few yards away from Littler in the café.
“She got away, Boss” Naylor’s voice panted from his radio.
“I saw. I’ll meet you back at the station”.

He knew he wouldn’t need to wait much longer now. He watched a woman with a pushchair enter the bank – too small. A man in an orange waterproof and jeans – too tall. And then he watched the man in the Barbour jacket with the full ginger beard cross the road and glance up and down the street nervously before stepping inside the bank. “Gotcha.” He said to himself.

Just under two minutes later the man appeared outside again and walked towards Littler, tin the direction of the main railway station. Littler sat in his car and watched him in his rear view mirror until he’d almost disappeared, then got out and followed him on foot. He walked into the station concourse, took a bag from a luggage locker, and entered one of the station’s all gender toilets. Littler waited on the opposite side of the station patiently. Fifteen minutes, twenty, twenty-five. At the half hour mark he became concerned that the man had gone and he’d somehow missed him – he walked around the back of the toilet, checking there wasn’t another exit.

Forty-five, fifty, fifty-five. After an hour had passed a young redhead emerged wearing a short green dress and a shawl loosely wrapped around her shoulders. Even though she was carrying the same duffle bag that the man had taken out of the locker he was astounded that this was the same person he’d followed from the bank. She returned the duffle to the locker and he followed her again as she set off on foot out of the station.

“Mr and Mrs Randall I believe” Littler placed his warrant card on the restaurant table. “Mind if I join you?”
Marion’s face turned white.
“Mr Steven Randall” he turned to Robyn “erm…miss…err…” he coughed and went on. “I’ve reason to believe that you attended the Central Bank in Nottingham town centre this afternoon dressed in a Barbour jacket and suit whereupon you undertook to rob said establishment before exiting and walking to the train station where you changed into your current, err, outfit. Furthermore I believe we have evidence linking you to three additional robberies in Nottingham over the last two months. Based on all that…” he paused for a moment “you’re looking at fifteen to twenty years.”
Marion exhaled and bowed her head. Robyn reached across the table and held her hands firmly. Neither of them said anything.

“The thing is,” he went on “the word on the street is that all the proceeds from the robberies have been, erm, given away.” He paused again. “Now. My dear old mum, bless her, hasn’t got long to go now I’m afraid. I was in the hospice with her at the weekend. One of the members of staff in there – Peter I believe his name is, lovely fella, told me they’d had some mystery donations recently. And it seems something similar has happened at the women’s refuge and some other charities as well.” Again he paused. “So here’s what we do. This little crime spree stops right now, do you understand?” Marion’s head remained bowed but Robyn nodded. “I never want to see or hear from either of you again, or I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Do I make myself clear?” Again Robyn nodded. “Good. In that case, on behalf of the hospice and my mum I’d like to say ‘thank you’. And, erm, have a nice evening.” He picked up his warrant card, stood up and left.

They sat in silence, Marion’s head still bowed, Robyn gripping her hands. Robyn exhaled slowly. “Fuck.”
Marion’s shoulders were shaking and Robyn leant into her and kissed the top of her head gently “It’s going to be alright, love. It’s going to be alright”
But when Marion sat up she was giggling, not crying.
Robyn was discombobulated for a moment but then, as always when Marion was giggling, she couldn’t help but giggle herself. “What? What is it?” she asked.
“Our neighbours.”
“What?”
“I don’t know why, but I just thought about our neighbours.”
“Eh?”
“I mean, there we are. Mr and Mrs Ordinary. Me delivering babies and you repairing washing machines for little old ladies that can’t afford new ones. In our little semi-detached house with our little car and our fortnight in Alicante every summer. But we’re really bank robbers,” she giggled, “and the husband looks better in a dress than most of the women in Nottingham. What on Earth would they think if they knew?”
Robyn giggled again. “It’s kind of sexy to have secrets.”
Marion stretched across the table and leaned into Robyn’s ear “I’ve got a secret too, you know.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I knew.”
“What do you mean you knew?”
“I knew. Not about the bank robberies, but about you dressing up.”
“How?”
“Oh, little things. A bit of mascara left in the corner of your eye; some foundation on your towel. Not enough to be sure. But then one day when it was your day off I pretended to go into work and then sneaked back in. You were upstairs at the dressing table, your blonde wig on, your make up perfectly done, a little short satin robe on, your stockings peeking out from underneath…”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know what to say. I mean I was shocked and everything. But looking at you like that…I mean, knowing it was really you underneath. There was something about it that just turned me on so much. And then I found out about the robbery, and we had our big row. And part of me was actually disappointed when I realized that maybe you were just dressing up because it was a good disguise. So I set you a trap.”
“A trap?”
“Yeah. When I chose that tweed suit for your final disguise. I mean, you looked so disappointed that I hadn’t got you a dress. You tried to hide it, remember, but I could tell.”
Robyn smiled.
“I was pretty sure then. So I got you the green dress and the wig. And I wrote the note, and pinned it onto the dress. And I’ve been sitting here for an hour drinking that champagne just hoping and praying that you’d be wearing it when you came. And imagining what I’d like to do to you if you did.”
Robyn stared at her. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Oh, don’t say anything, stupid! Just kiss me and take me home.”

THE END