The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (30 page)

       
‘You don’t have much longer to practice. The photographs have arrived in Miami. They’ll be sent by courier tomorrow. The money is being transferred through the banking system.’

       
‘I’ll be ready.’

       
‘Good. The profiler will be here tomorrow. Then you leave for London.’

       
Cramer shrugged his shoulders inside the coat. ‘I’m going to need a few more rehearsals. I’ve got to get my reaction time down.’

       
The Colonel nodded and tapped his stick on the playing surface, hard enough to dent the clay. ‘There’s been another killing. In South Africa.’

       
‘He gets around, doesn’t he? Have gun, will travel.’

       
‘There’s no turning back now, Joker.’ There was a flat finality about his words, a coldness Cramer hadn’t heard before, as if he was already distancing himself.

The boy heard his mother’s screams as he opened the front door. He fought the impulse to pull the door shut and run away as he stood on the threshold listening to the animal-like cries of pain. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door-jamb. The screams stopped and the boy sighed deeply. He closed the door as quietly as he could but the lock clicked and his mother called out his name. The boy dropped his book-filled carrier bag on the floor and climbed the stairs with a heavy heart.

       
His mother was curled up on the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears streaming down her cheeks. The boy stood by the bedroom door, watching her. ‘I can’t take any more of this,’ she said.

       
‘You’ll get better, Mum,’ he said.

       
‘No, I won’t,’ she said.

       
‘You will. I know you will.’

       
‘It hurts,’ she said, curling up into a tighter ball.

       
She was so thin, the boy realised. Her arms were like sticks and the skin seemed to be stretched tight across her face. But she was still his mum. ‘Shall I call the doctor?’ he asked, his voice trembling.

       
‘The doctor can’t help,’ she said. ‘He can’t make the hurt go away.’ Her breath started coming in short gasps as if she was having trouble breathing.

       
‘Do you want me to get you some milk?’ His mother shook her head. ‘What about something to eat?’

       
‘You have to help me,’ she pleaded.

       
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will, Mum. I’ll do anything to make you better.’

       
She shook her head again. ‘You can’t make me better,’ she said. She fixed him with her tear-filled eyes. ‘But you can stop the hurting. You have to get me my medicine
.’

Dermott Lynch woke instantly at the sound of the shower being turned on. At first he couldn’t remember where he was, the wallpaper with its yellow flowers and the ruffles on the curtains gave the bedroom a feminine feel and there was a fluffy white bear on the dressing table which stared at him with blue glass eyes. Sun streamed in through the thin curtains and then he heard someone step into the shower. Marie Hennessy. Lynch looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock but he’d only slept for a few hours. Marie had kept him up late, talking over old times, begging him to tell her stories about her mother and father.

       
Lynch had taken care to sanitise what he told her. While her parents had both died for the IRA, Marie had never shown any interest in joining the organisation and Lynch didn’t think she knew the full extent of their involvement. Liam Hennessy had been an adviser to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, during several bombing campaigns on the mainland during the late Eighties. He had also been the driving force behind the bomb attack on the Brighton hotel which had come close to taking the life of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Following the death of Liam Hennessy, his wife Mary had assumed an even more active role, going underground and taking part in several high profile bombings, or spectaculars as the IRA Army Council liked to call them. A lot of people had died.

       
He sat up in bed and rubbed his face with his hands. It still felt strange without the beard, as if the skin belonged to someone else, but he was pleased with the shorter hair as he no longer had to keep pushing it out of his eyes. He leant over the side of the bed and put his hand on the pistol to reassure himself that it was still there. He got out of bed and was about to pull the curtains aside when he had second thoughts. The flat was overlooked by the houses on the other side of the road and it would be smarter not to let the neighbours know that Marie had had a visitor. It was warm in the bedroom and Lynch suddenly remembered the body in the boot of the Ford Sierra, parked down below. It would soon start to smell and it would only take one curious passer-by to have the whole area flooded with police.

       
The bedroom door opened and he turned to see Marie standing there, swathed in a purple towel, her hair dripping wet. She showed no embarrassment at his nakedness, and in fact it was Lynch who blushed. ‘Shower’s free,’ she said brightly.

       
Lynch stood with his hands across his groin like a footballer in a defensive wall. ‘Great, thanks,’ he said.

       
Marie’s grin widened and she raised one eyebrow. For a moment it looked as if she was going to say something else, but then she turned and left him alone.

       
Lynch went into the bathroom and locked the door before running the shower. Above the washbasin was a mirrored cabinet and he stared carefully at his own reflection. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what else he could do to change his appearance. Marie hadn’t recognised him but the man in the van clearly had, despite the absence of a beard and the wire-framed glasses. He opened the cabinet door and looked inside: aspirins, contact lens cleaning solution, bottles containing different coloured contact lenses, cotton-wool balls, tweezers, a bottle of witchhazel, and several packets of contraceptive pills. ‘Tut, tut, Marie, a good Catholic girl like you,’ Lynch muttered to himself. She was a fine looking girl, and Lynch couldn’t help but wonder who she was sleeping with and what she was like between the sheets.

       
The coloured contact lenses were a good idea but he had perfect eyesight and whatever Marie’s prescription, they’d be an irritant if he tried to wear them. What he’d really hoped to find was hair dye.

       
He closed the cabinet door and stared at his reflection again. He looked younger without the facial hair, and the glasses made him resemble a vicar welcoming the faithful to a church garden party. There was a sudden knock on the door. ‘Tea or coffee, Dermott?’ called Marie.

       
‘Coffee. You don’t dye your hair, do you?’

       
There was a short pause as if Marie was trying to work out why he’d asked the question. Then realisation must have dawned. ‘No,’ she said through the door. ‘But I can get you some stuff from the local chemist, if you want. After breakfast.’

       
Lynch smiled to himself. Smart and beautiful. Just like her late mother.

Martin was tucking into a cooked breakfast when Cramer walked into the dining hall. His plate was piled high with sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs and there was a stack of buttered toast on a side plate. Martin winked, and raised his coffee mug in salute.

       
Cramer shook his head in amazement. Martin swallowed. ‘Hollow legs, Mike. Family trait.’ He picked up two pieces of toast, slapped a sausage and two rashers of crispy bacon between them, and slotted them into his mouth, as if posting a letter.

       
Cramer poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down opposite. A neighbouring table held a large television set and a video recorder, and a white power cord trailed across the oak floorboards to a socket in the wall. Cramer nodded at the television. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

       
Martin shrugged and washed his food down with a mouthful of coffee. ‘Dunno. The Colonel set it up first thing.’

       
‘Where’s Allan?’

       
‘On the tennis courts with the boys. Running through a few set pieces.’

       
‘How do you think it’s going?’

       
‘Could go either way, Mike. I wish I could say I was confident that we’d get him, but we’ve got so little time to react, you know?’

       
‘Yeah. I know.’ Under Allan’s guidance, Cramer’s reaction times were getting shorter and shorter, but he was still failing to draw his weapon more often than not. And even when he did manage to get his gun out, he’d yet to get in a killing shot before being shot himself.

       
‘Allan and I’ll do everything we can to give you extra time, but at the end of the day it’s like two gunfighters, except that you don’t know who you’re drawing against.’ Cramer sipped his coffee. ‘Not eating?’ Martin asked.

       
‘Is there anything left?’

       
Martin grinned and made himself another bacon and sausage sandwich. Cramer heard the Colonel walk into the dining room behind him. ‘Good morning,’ said the Colonel, lifting the lids off the stainless steel serving dishes and sniffing like a golden retriever tracking game. ‘How are the sausages this morning?’

       
‘First class,’ said Martin. ‘I don’t know why Mike here isn’t tucking in.’

       
‘Maybe later,’ said Cramer.

       
The Colonel spooned scrambled eggs onto a plate and used tongs to pick up two grilled tomato halves. ‘I spoke to our friends in the States,’ the Colonel said to Cramer. ‘They’re going to run a check on previous murders using shots to the head. They’ll get back to us if they turn up anything.’

       
Cramer nodded in acknowledgement. The dining room was cold despite the portable gas heater and the Colonel was wearing his Barbour jacket. He went over to the video recorder and put in a cassette before sitting down next to Cramer. Martin slid to the side so that they could all get a good view of the screen. From his pocket, the Colonel took a remote control device. Before pressing the ‘play’ button, he pushed the plate of eggs and tomatoes in front of Cramer. Cramer started to protest but the Colonel silenced him with a wave of his hand. ‘Eat,’ he ordered and Cramer reluctantly picked up a fork. The television flickered into life. ‘These were taken by the security cameras in Harrods,’ said the Colonel. ‘The quality isn’t as good as it might be, but as you’ll see, it doesn’t really matter.’

       
On screen an Arab in desert robes moved through the store, preceded by three bodyguards. There were two other men in suits either side of the Arab, but they looked more like store executives than protection, and behind the Arab walked three women in black robes, their faces covered. Cramer didn’t hear the shots but he saw the first bodyguard slump to the floor and then the killer appeared on the screen, his arm outstretched as he aimed his weapon at the second bodyguard. The silenced gun fired twice again, two shots to the man’s chest. The third bodyguard died before he could draw his own weapon. Cramer’s mouth was dry. The killer was fast. Fast and accurate, faster even than the SAS men he’d been practising with on the tennis courts. The killer’s face was turned away from the security camera as he walked past the Arab and shot one of the women, a bullet in the face, one in the chest, then he walked quickly out of range of the security camera.

       
Cramer put a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and chewed slowly as the screen flickered. This time the view was of the stairs. Two elegant blondes in designer coats were smiling and nodding and a young man in a denim jacket turned to admire their legs. The killer came into view, walking quickly, his head down and his face turned away from the camera, a handgun pressed to his side. One of the blondes put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and fearful, and then the killer was gone. Cramer frowned. ‘Was he limping?’ he asked.

       
‘Left leg,’ agreed Martin. Allan arrived, wearing a dark blue blazer and grey flannels, looking for all the world like an Olympic referee. Allan stood behind the Colonel, his arms folded across his chest. He nodded a silent greeting to Cramer, then studied the screen.

       
‘This is the Egyptian Hall,’ said the Colonel as the screen flickered again. The killer walked by a life-size copy of the Rosetta stone and past a display of small statues. Cramer put down his fork. There was no doubt about it, the man was limping. Again it was impossible to identify the man, his head was turned away from the security camera. As he passed out of the camera’s field the screen flickered and was replaced by a shot of the stationery department.

       
‘He’s really camera-shy, isn’t he?’ mused Martin as he assembled another bacon and sausage sandwich. No one seemed to be paying attention to the killer as he walked purposefully to a stock room door, even though he was still holding the silenced gun. He opened the door and disappeared behind it and the screen flickered once more.

       
The next shot was of the underground tunnel. This time the killer was wearing a warehouseman’s coat and there was no sign of his gun. He walked past two workmen but they ignored him. The limp seemed to be less pronounced, Cramer noticed.

       
The final section of the video showed a young security guard on the telephone. The guard looked to his left, opened his mouth to speak and then fell back, blood pouring from his throat. The killer appeared briefly at the bottom left of the screen, revealing nothing more than the back of his head and his shoulders. The Colonel used the remote control to switch off the television set. ‘That’s the only time our man has been captured on film,’ he said. ‘I want you all to play it as many times as it takes until you get a feel for the way he moves.’