Good heavens, dust off the archive boxes and polish the cold case files. The unlikeliest of fugitives has finally been collared. A woman who managed to outrun the long arm of the law for the best part of three decades has been brought to book, not by some high-tech CSI shenanigans, but by the simple, plodding persistence of the British bobby. One can only assume the trail of clues included a series of increasingly desperate letters to the local paper complaining about the price of milk.
This dashing dame, a veritable Miss Marple if Miss Marple had a penchant for sawn-off shotguns and ill-gotten gains, has been sentenced for a series of armed robberies that would make the Kray twins blush. For thirty years she melted into the mundane, probably attending PTA meetings and tutting at the state of the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the coppers were presumably working through a rolodex of her former associates, all of whom must have been remarkably tight-lipped, or perhaps just stunned by the sheer audacity of it all. One imagines the arresting officer, a chap with the weary eyes of a man who has seen too many kebabs go cold on stakeout, simply tapped her on the shoulder outside Sainsbury's and said, 'We know about the Post Office, Gladys.'
To be fair, the British police force has enough on its plate dealing with feral youths and low-grade political corruption without having to chase ghosts from the days when mobile phones were the size of house bricks. But here we are. Justice, it seems, is a patient old dog. It may take its sweet time sniffing around the park, but eventually it will find the scent. Or in this case, perhaps a fingerprint on a three-decade-old Wagon Wheel wrapper.
The trial, one suspects, was a masterpiece of courtroom drama. The prosecution, no doubt armed with a lever-arch file groaning under the weight of faded evidence. The defence, likely clinging to the shaky defense of 'But she's really very sorry and it was the 1990s.' The judge, a stern-faced custodian of public morality who probably collects model police cars, delivered the sentence with a dramatic pause that could have cut glass: 'You will go to prison for your part in a series of armed robberies that terrorised the commuters of the Home Counties.' Cue gasps from the public gallery and a slow clap from a retired chief inspector in the back row.
What of the loot? Long gone, one imagines, blown on timeshares in Tenerife and slightly dodgy Renaults. The real treasure here is the story. A narrative so perfectly British it should be preserved in aspic. A woman, a mask, a bag of cash, and then a lifetime of looking over her shoulder at every pensioner in a beige mac. Now she has a new uniform provided by the state, and the only running she'll be doing is to the prison library for a copy of 'Great Escapes'.
This is the sort of news that makes you want to sip a lukewarm gin and tonic and contemplate the sheer barminess of it all. One can only hope she writes her memoirs. The title? 'Running on Empty: How I Got Away With It for 30 Years and Still Ended Up Inside.' It would sit nicely on the shelf between 'How to Rob a Bank and Influence People' and 'The Wit and Wisdom of the British Judiciary.'
