The Bank Manager

22^nd December 1941

BUNGLED BANK ROBBERY ENDS IN TRAGEDY

Abi Gale, Crime Reporter

An attempted bank robbery that took place at the Bounds Green branch of the London and Provincial Bank on the evening of Friday 19^th December ended in tragedy. Police report that the branch manager, Mr Clive Spendler V.C., 64, died from a severe head wound received during the course of the unsuccessful robbery. 

After consulting with the bank staff, police confirmed that nothing appeared to have been stolen. The officer in charge of the case, Chief Inspector Reg Dixon, additionally confirmed that Suzanne Spendler, Mr Spendler’s wife, also 64, had been held at gunpoint from late on the same Friday afternoon. She was released around 6.30 pm that evening following a phone call received by her captor. Mrs Spendler explained that the gang member had bundled his way into the house that afternoon when she answered the door. As he wore a mask throughout her ordeal, she was unable to offer much by way of a description. Police believe that the gang consisted of at least two and perhaps three members.

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The Strong Room

The London and Provincial Bank, Bounds Green, London. 19^th December 1941c.  6pm

Clive Spendler V.C. was considered something of a local hero in Bounds Green. If a bank manager could ever be considered a hero that is. He’d returned home a Captain from the Great War complete with a Victoria Cross but unfortunately minus most of his right leg below the knee. He was yards away from the safety of his home trenches with his wounded colleague across his shoulders when the German sniper shattered his ankle. Gangrene had seen to the rest of his lower leg. The prosthetic leg and foot served only to add to his status. Apart from the time he spent serving King and Country, he’d been at the bank man and boy since he was sixteen and had been bank manager at the branch for the last fifteen years.

The call carrying the instructions had come through to him at the bank just before 5pm as the staff were leaving to go home. The caller said that he was ringing from Clive’s home where his wife was being held at gunpoint. Clive was to allow all the staff to leave and then let two men in at the back door.

‘No alarms and no police’, the caller had said, ‘or the wife ‘gets it’’.

 How original, Clive thought.

Captain Clive Spendler had been used to making decisions that affected the lives of himself and his men in minutes, sometimes seconds. Here he’d had an hour, stood around in the strongroom with these two masked men. Of course, he knew what he was going to be asked to do and he also knew what his decision would be. The two robbers had been quietly conferring.

‘Now open the fucking safe, or you know what will happen’, one of the robbers said suddenly. He had a gun. Clive had stared down the barrels of countless enemy guns – this was just one more. He’d thought that the robber carrying the gun seemed to be the one in charge. The other robber carried a nightstick.

Clive just shook his head and said, ‘Not from my bank’.

‘Open that fucking safe. One phone call from me and your wife will die’, the robber snarled, and thrust the gun forward.

Clive thought. Would they harm Suzanne? They acted and sounded like amateurs. Plus, he knew what she would say. She was strong – her captor was more likely to come to harm than her!

Just a hint of a smile appeared on Clive’s lips. He shook his head again, ‘Not from my bank’.

They stood in silence. The look on Clive’s face was so defiant, so resolute, that both robbers knew the game was most likely up at that point. It was nightstick man whose rage overwhelmed him first. Even if he meant it merely as a frightener, the blow that he struck Clive over the head was so adrenaline fuelled that he was dead before he hit the strongroom floor.

The robber with the gun cursed under his breath and then both men left hurriedly by the back door and fled under the cover of darkness.

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Three years later……

The Strong Room

The London and Provincial Bank, Bounds Green, London. 15^th December 1944 c. 12am

Charlie Wegner, even in the best light, cut a rather sad and pathetic figure of a man. Having spent a good portion of the last half dozen weekends along with the last five hours underground he could now add dishevelled and dirty to his list of qualities.

But now he could stand and look around the bank strongroom by the light of his lantern torch. The same strongroom where – three years earlier – he had shown that posh fucking bank manager who was boss with a single blow from his nightstick. Oh yes, he could now stand and think, it’s going to be bleedin’ worth it.

It was several weeks ago that he’d had the good fortune (although he didn’t know it at the time) to come across a map of the local sewer system. The council building had been bombed and there were thousands of papers blowing down the street. He’d instinctively grabbed and hung on to a handful. When he saw the word ‘bank’ on one of the maps, he had a lightbulb moment for maybe the only time in his life. Perhaps the good life he dreamt of beckoned for his wife Jenny and their eight kids.

I ain’t going to be no useless worm of a man now Jenny.

The weekends of loosening inspection hatches, hauling gear and chipping away had brought him to this point. All he had to do now was to crack the safe and if there was one thing in his miserable criminal life that he was good at it was that. And he had the whole weekend.

That’s when the light on his lantern torch went out. He’d never known actual pitch-black darkness before. Knew it now all right. Those new batteries must still be in his knapsack. He had a box of matches in there somewhere as well. Not to panic then, but this darkness. It was like it was solid, that he could actually touch it.

 And then there was a sound – from the other side of the strongroom? – that penetrated the blackness. It was strange in that while he was desperate for some light, he seemed to be rooted in listening to that sound. He wanted to be able to describe it in rational terms, because there was no-one else in the bank with him. Right? It was actually two sounds close together. The first was a gentle thud. The second – a moment later – seemed like a sort of dragging movement along the floor. And it seemed to be getting closer. Then the sounds suddenly stopped. All Charlie Wegner could hear now was the sound of his own breathing. He knelt down, groped for the knapsack, pulled it towards him and felt inside for the box of matches. He just had to bring some light to this darkness. Staying kneeling he struck the match. The initial flare died down to a dim light.

The face that stared back at him was no more than a few inches away. There was a long bloody wound running down the forehead to just above its left eye. The blood-soaked features of the face below the eyeline were undefinable. The top of the shirt collar was matted with blood.

Charlie Wegner – still clutching the match - had fallen to the ground and in that fading light, in his final moments, he saw the shape of a man limp slowly off into the darkness. His heart then gave up so he never saw the thing as it stopped and turned, shook its head and said, ‘Not from my bank’.

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News item from the Bounds Green Advertiser

22^nd December 1944

STRANGE OCCURRENCE AT LOCAL BANK

Abi Gale, Chief Crime Reporter

An update on the story that we originally ran on 18^th December concerning a strange death that occurred at the Bounds Green branch of the London and Provincial Bank on or around Friday 15^th December. It was reported at the time that a man – assumed to be a robber – had been found dead in the strongroom of the bank having apparently gained access through the floor of the room. Bank staff had confirmed that nothing had been stolen. At the time the identity of the deceased along with the cause of death was unknown.