Kelvin's Story

Kelvin had it all planned.
That’s the thing about robbery; if you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.
Kelvin’s a writer. Well, he writes. Writers sell stories but when they don’t sell and they’ve being doing them long enough, they’re known as failed writers.
As Kelvin hasn’t sold any of his stories, he comes under the failed category.
It’s not that his work isn’t any good. That’s not the problem. It’s just that he was never that good with people.
This is indeed one of Kelvin’s own stories, which he wrote in France in 1995. He gave it to me last month to see if I liked it.
For obvious reasons, all the names and places have been changed to protect Kelvin’s identity (Kelvin’s not his real name, as you’ve probably guessed).
He always said that if a work of crime fiction could actually be demonstrated in real life, then it deserved publication. In order to justify to himself that this really was good fiction, he decided to commit the crime he invented in this story.

‘He’d wrestled with the idea that he didn’t have to use a real gun but there was no way around it.
Choices had to be made if he was to pull it off, and a gun was the only way that he felt sure he could scare them into quick, easy submission.
Having returned from France after a long stint as a cook at a backward children’s home, Kelvin hadn’t shaved for almost two years.
Bowled over by the audacity of the story, he decided not to send it to publishers. That, after all, would have stopped him from carrying out the robbery, assuming the publishers he’d sent it to had read it, which he thought was unlikely.
Either way, it wasn’t worth risking.
When he returned to Britain, he invented a new name for himself, which was Ronnie because of Ronnie O’Sullivan, the snooker player, and when people asked where he came from in the Lambeth café that he cooked at, he’d make up some half-baked story about coming from Colchester and being the youngest in a family of ten children. Ronnie Ravissant became his new name. In French, that would translate as Ravishing Ronnie.
His landlady at the bedsitting house he stayed at had never asked him for ID, probably because she knew it counted for nothing anyway, and he always made his rent on time.
Paid cash in hand at the café, the owner had no great desire to delve into Kelvin’s background. He did his work and his customers always spoke highly of his cooking. With the diverse cultures in the area and all strange head-gear that people wore, he could hardly complain about his beard, which he always tied up for work. His hair was long, too, and when he wasn’t working, you’d have thought he was just another homeless person trudging the streets going nowhere in the same old clothes.
On the day of the robbery, a warm Sunday in late July, Kelvin walked into the betting-shop as the time approached a quarter-to-six in the evening.
Having frequented the place on a few occasions over the last month or so, he knew that this particular betting-shop was perfect for the robbery.
Firstly, it was quite a big shop and did a lot of trade. For that reason, the manager in charge was more experienced than most, having to deal with large sums of cash.
Kelvin had noticed that this manager always worked the Sunday shift alone and that he was least busy just before closing-time, when everyone had lost their money over the weekend. He was also quite sure that this manager had very little cash outside of the safe at this time, which would seem like a wise idea to most people.
On one occasion, Kelvin had watched with excitement as a punter became very upset after being told that he’d have to wait till the next day to receive his winnings as all the money had been locked away in the safe.
When he walked in, there was no one else there apart from the manager.
Newspaper and losing tickets lay on the carpet, plastic cups rested on the formica tables in front of the wall of screens and a hello went unanswered.
Kelvin approached a roulette-machine and started to fill it with twenty pound notes.
The manager noticed him doing this and issued a warning. ‘I’m closing in ten minutes,’ he said abruptly.
‘Right you are,’ replied Kelvin.
Once he’d put seven hundred and twenty pounds into the machine to play with, he placed twenty pounds on each of the thirty-six roulette numbers and spun the virtual wheel.
‘This is it,’ he said to himself, trying to hide the excitement.
The ball landed on three, but it could have been any old number.
When the manager heard the machine clock up his winnings, he looked up, annoyed.
‘Don’t get carried away with your money, mate,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got a hundred quid in the float.’
Kelvin turned around quickly to face him. ‘You’re joking, right?’ he said, his mouth agape, his lip quivering and his eyes bearing down on the manager.
‘What do you expect? It’s Sunday night and I’m about to close up,’ said the manager.
‘I don’t care what time it is,’ replied Kelvin, holding the printed receipt for seven hundred and twenty pounds that he’d removed from the machine in his hand. ‘I’m catching a flight to Greece tonight at ten o’clock and I need my money. Do you get me?’
The manager went to laugh. ‘It’s in the safe, mate. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’
Kelvin sat gawping at him for a few seconds before replying. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said. I’m leaving the country tonight and I want my money.’
‘That’s not possible, sir,’ replied the manager.
‘Oh, I see, it’s sir now, is it? I get it, you think I’m some pushover, right! Well, I’m not, right? I’m calling the police right now.’
Kelvin tapped in 999, staring at the manager who seemed to have lost his tongue.
‘I know my rights, you know,’ said Kelvin, pretending to be waiting for an answer from the other end of the line.
He’d done his homework, and knew all too well that it was against the law for a gaming-retailer to withhold money from a winning customer during prescribed times of business.
This had happened to the manager a couple of times but he knew the local bobby, who was an infrequent user of the shop, and quite happy to pop down for assistance.
Kelvin knew that the only way he’d go to the safe was to have a policeman present, which was exactly what he wanted.
‘Put the phone down,’ said the manager at last. ‘I’ll call the police and tell them to come over so I can go to the safe.’
‘Thank you,’ replied a very haughty Kelvin.
He went for his phone, tapped in some numbers and waited.
‘Hello, is that Bill?’ he said. ‘Hello, Bill, it’s Ray. Listen, can you come down here? There’s a customer needs paying… Five minutes? OK, thanks.’
He looked over to Kelvin, who sat with his arms folded, pretending to be angry. ‘You can’t just take money on a bet and not pay up winnings, you know,’ he said. ‘That’s theft.’
The manager went on with his business of putting tickets through to head office. In the back of his mind, he knew that something wasn’t quite right about Kelvin, but he was tired and hungry and it was the end of another very profitable weekend.
When the policeman arrived, Kelvin stood up and waited to be questioned.
‘Are you the fella he owes money to?’ asked the policeman.
Kelvin nodded with his thick mass of facial hair.
‘Bloody bookies, hey? They like to take it off us but when it comes to getting it back, they’re right scrooges. Aren’t they, Ray?’ said the policeman, happy to joke around.
By this time, it had gone six o’clock, and to stop anyone else entering the shop while he went to the safe, Ray came out from behind the counter and unlocked the inner door to lock the front door.
He shook the policeman’s hand as he walked across the shop floor and as Kelvin heard the door lock tight and walked back to where the policeman was standing, he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the pair of them.
‘Fuckin’ hell,’ said Ray. ‘Steady on.’
Bill hadn’t seen this coming at all, but instinctively went for his gas-spray.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Throw it over there,’ said Kelvin, jolting the pistol in the direction of a corner and then quickly pointing it back to Bill’s head.
‘What do you want?’ quivered Ray.
‘What do you think I want?’ answered Kelvin.
Bill tried to reason with Kelvin but there was no use. One firm swipe of his pistol to Bill’s head from behind saw him fall to the floor.
Kelvin dug into his pocket and threw out a length of plastic clothes-line.
‘Pick it up,’ he said to Ray. ‘Now both of you move towards the toilet over there.’ They did as they were told. ‘Bill, take off your walkie-talkie and throw it over there. And don’t forget to turn it off.’
Bill did as he was told.
‘Now, Ray, I want you to tie Bill’s hands and feet up good and tight,’ said Kelvin.
Ray did as he was told as Kelvin watched carefully.
‘Now lock him inside the toilet,’ said Kelvin.
Ray put Bill into the toilet and turned the key in the lock.
‘Now let’s go and see what’s in that safe, shall we?’ he said, taking the key from Ray and pushing him towards the inner door.
At the safe in the backroom, Ray tried fumbling around to waste time but when Kelvin placed the cold nozzle of his pistol at his temple and pressed it into his face, the door opened in seconds.
‘I want you to put the money in these in thirty seconds. Do you understand?’ said Kelvin, throwing down two metre-long zip-up pouches that measured about six inches wide.
‘Fill them up! Quicker! Quicker!’ said Kelvin.
Once the pouches were full, Kelvin dragged them away from Ray, careful to watch for any moves.
‘Now give me the key to the front door and chew on this,’ he shouted.
‘What is it?’ whimpered Ray.
‘Don’t worry, it’s just a very fast-acting sedative. Now get on with it or I’ll shoot you, I swear I will,’ he said, taking the key. ‘Oh, and if this is the wrong key, I’m going to shoot you in your sleep. OK?’
Ray did as he was told, and in twenty seconds he was out cold.
Fitting the pouches loosely inside his long coat, he smiled to Ray and lay the pistol in his lap.
‘Nighty night, Ray, sleep tight.’
Kelvin made his way to the front door and calmly placed the key inside the lock.
In the street, he turned right and right again down a quiet side-street, where the car that he’d just bought (with false papers) was parked.
When he arrived at a disused factory, he got out to open the doors and drove inside.
Getting out, he took off his latex gloves and ran over to a sink.
Flapping out and laying down a dust-sheet that he’d taken from the car, he then started to cut away at his overgrown beard with some scissors, using a broken mirror that had been left there. Once the beard was manageable enough to shave, he lathered his face and pulled out the razor that he’d longed to use for nearly two years.
Wetting his hair, he started to cut away at the bedraggled lengths of hair until it was short enough to shave.
Two minutes later, he was a clean-shaven and bald man who was completely unrecognisable from the ageing hippy that had left the betting-shop.
Picking up the dust-sheet and taking it over to the car, Kelvin opened the boot, took out a small, empty shoulder-bag and placed the pouches of money inside.
Shedding his long coat and dirty brown trousers to reveal a pair of clean blue shorts, a plain white t-shirt and almost new training shoes, he reached inside the car and pulled out a baseball cap and a can of petrol.
Careful not to spill any on himself, he drenched the car, the clothes and the dust-sheet with the petrol and lit it.
Moving quickly to exit the factory with the bag over his shoulder, he closed the doors up and pulled the beak of his cap down over his face.
Walking briskly, he caught a bus to Paddington for the 8.42pm train to Bristol.
All the notes were untraceable, having come from hundreds of gamblers over one weekend. He’d never been in trouble with the police before so even if they had found a hair or a print somewhere, they’d have never tallied it to him.
After looking around for a suitable house to buy, Kelvin found the perfect place. It was rundown and needed everything doing, but the view was splendid for writing.’
He continues to write to this day.