The Hat Woman (as she became known) chose the counter in the far corner of the bank where the squinting CCTV could only produce a distorted picture of the tall, or possibly average height, figure in an orange coat that might have been yellow or maybe a greenish brown with gold buttons. As she pulled out the gun—in some accounts, a knife, an umbrella, or a baguette—she shouted to the clerk in an accent that was unmistakably Glaswegian or definitely Dutch, to fill two supermarket bags (possibly Sainsbury’s, maybe Lidl) with cash.
The clerk began to sweat. By the time he pushed the bulging sacks across the counter, this heavy-set man, who didn’t like vegetables and took too little exercise, had drops of sweat dripping from his hair. As he clutched his arm in pain, the woman started to run, while he slid, lifeless, from chair to cream-coloured carpet.
Out on the road, the woman clicked her heels three times and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Or leapt into a speeding car. An elderly bystander saw her rip off a blonde wig and melt into the crowd. Another swore she stole a bicycle.
A month later, the jury deliberated. Was the woman with the dismal past and precarious future a criminal or a victim? An opportunist, a moral hazard, or a lost soul? She was certainly unlucky. She and the bank clerk both. And what about the quietly sobbing widow, for whom their decision to punish or prevent, to detain or deport, would change absolutely nothing?
The one thing they could all agree on was the hat. Tall and wide-brimmed, circled with ribbon, finished with a fat bow and a fake flower, it was bold and brazen, a shocking shade of unrepentant red.
They sent the hat down for ten years.
Discover more from Cranked Anvil
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Cranked Anvil 