'Under the Circumstances' by Tim Warren

“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked the bank robbers. “I only came in to withdraw £20 but under the circumstances I'd be open to changing my plans. I can pretend to be a hostage if you like?” 

They looked at each other as if weighing it up, which encouraged me to go on. 

“That way, you don't have to take a real one and I'll feel like I've earned the cash. All the benefits of a real hostage without any of the risk. Think about it.” 

“Can you act?” said the ringleader. I shrugged. “Right now, I'm acting unafraid,” I told him. “With a side order of nonchalant.”

“OK, you're in,” he said.

Everything went swimmingly, apart from one sticky moment, when one of the gang forgot his lines. Thankfully, one of the tellers was also a prompter (for a local amateur dramatics group) and just couldn't help herself. 

“My compliments on the costumes too,” she whispered as we left. “I do them for my group. Convincing but not too 'stock'. You know what I mean?” 

An hour later, we were celebrating in the pub.

“I'll get the first round,” I said, pulling out a twenty pound note.

*

It's been a few years now, but the gang and I still stay in touch — we'd bonded, like people so often do under stress — but they've been a bit down lately, what with the covid and all. It's hit them hard. 

“We tried home working,” they tell me over Zoom.

“Hacking’s harder than it looks.”

“Course then we remembered we are criminals. So we just broke lockdown.”

“Have you ever tried robbing a bank when literally everyone's wearing a mask, though?”

“No, I certainly haven’t,” I said.

“Don’t. It was a disaster. We've totally lost our gravitas.”