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not much.
    â€˜Do me a favour,’ said Marty, ‘and don’t point that weapon at me. Suppose it was loaded?’
    â€˜You’d have to be a right cretin, wouldn’t you?’ Nigel turned the gun over and looked at it. ‘There’s German writing on the side. Carl Walther, Modell PPK Cal 9 mm kurz. Then it says Made in W. Germany. ’ The temptation to hold forth was too much for him. ‘You can buy these things in cycle shops, I’ve seen them. They’re called non-firing replica guns and they use them in movies. Cost a bomb too. Where’d you get the bread for a shooter like this?’
    Marty wasn’t going to tell him about the insurance policy his mother had taken out for him years ago and which had matured. He said only, ‘Give it here,’ took the gun back and looked at the pair of black stockings Nigel was holding out for his inspection.
    These Nigel had found in a pile of dirty washing on the floor of the commune bathroom. They were the property of a girl called Sarah who sometimes wore them for sexy effect. ‘Timing,’ said Nigel, ‘is of the essence. We get to the bank just before one. We leave the van in the lane at the back. When the polone comes to lock up, Groombridge’ll be due to split. We put the stockings over our faces and rush the polone and lock the doors after us.’
    â€˜Call her a girl, can’t you? You’re not a poove.’
    Nigel went red. The shot had gone home. He wasn’t homosexual – he wasn’t yet sure if he was sexual at all and he was unhappy about it – but the real point was that Marty had caught him out using a bit of slang which he hadn’t known was queers’ cant. He said sullenly, ‘We get her to open the safe and then we tie her up so she can’t call the fuzz.’ A thought struck him. ‘Did you get the gloves?’
    Marty had forgotten and Nigel let him have it for that, glad to be once more in the ascendant. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘and that finger of yours is more of a giveaway than any goddamned prints.’
    Neither affronted nor hurt, Marty glanced at his right hand and admitted with a shrug that Nigel was right. The forefinger wasn’t exactly repulsive to look at or grotesque but it wasn’t a pretty sight either. And it was uniquely Marty’s. He had sliced the top off it on an electric mower at the garden centre – a fraction nearer and he’d have lost half his hand, as the manager had never tired of pointing out. The finger was now about a quarter of an inch shorter than the one on the other hand and the nail, when it grew again, was warped and puckered to the shape of a walnut kernel.
    â€˜Get two pairs of gloves Monday morning when you get the van,’ snapped Nigel, ‘and when you’ve got them go and have your hair and your beard cut off.’
    Marty made a fuss about that, but the fuss was really to cover his fear. The idea of making changes in his appearance brought home to him the reality of what they were about to do. He was considerably afraid and beginning to get cold feet. It didn’t occur to him that Nigel might be just as afraid, and they blustered and brazened it out to each other that evening and the next day. Both were secretly aware that they had insufficiently ‘cased’ the Childon sub-branch of the Anglian-Victoria, that their only experience of robbery came from books and films, and that they knew very little about the bank’s security system. But nothing would have made either of them admit it. The trouble was, they didn’t like each other. Marty had befriended Nigel because he was flattered that a doctor’s son who had been to college wanted to know him, and Nigel had linked up with Marty because he needed someone even weaker than himself to bully and impress. But among these thieves there was no honour. Each might have said of the other, He’s my best friend and I hate