The Double Tap

moon. Just like in the comics. The boy leaned back and put his hands on the floor as he stared at the screen. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be in a space capsule, drinking through a tube and going to the toilet in a space suit. The boy wanted to go to the toilet but he didn’t want to miss one second of the launch. He pressed his legs together and blocked out thoughts of his full bladder. He heard his name being called but he ignored it and shuffled closer to the screen until his feet were almost under the television set. Something fell away from the bottom of the rocket and for a moment he thought that something had gone wrong, but then he heard the clipped voice say that separation had been successful and he realised that everything was okay.

His mother shouted for him again and the boy leaned forward and turned up the volume. The rocket was a small dot in the sky with a thick white plume trailing behind it. The boy wondered at what point the rocket was actually in space and not in the sky, and if there was a line somewhere up there that separated the two.

There was a banging from his mother’s bedroom, the sound of a walking stick being pounded against the threadbare carpet. The boy got slowly to his feet. The banging was repeated, more rapidly this time. The boy went into the hallway and looked up the stairs. His legs felt like lead. His mother called his name again and the boy put a hand on the banister. He put his foot on the first step. He wished with all his heart for his father, but he was at work and wouldn’t be back for hours. From the sixth step he could see his parents’ bedroom door, painted in the same pale green colour as the rest of the doors in the house. The boy had lived in the house all his life and he couldn’t remember them ever being any other colour. He took the stairs one at a time, pausing between each step, his eyes fixed on the door. ‘Where are you?’ his mother shouted, then he heard her cough.

‘I’m coming,’ he called and ran up the last few stairs. He gripped the doorknob and pushed open the door. His mother was on the bed on her hands and knees, her body wracked with hacking coughs. Her mousy brown hair was tangled and matted, her eyes were red and puffy and there were stains down the front of her blue flannel nightie. She looked up as he walked into the room and stood at the foot of the bed.

Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. ‘What do you want, Mum?’ he asked.

His mother sat back on her heels and wrapped her arms around her stomach. ‘I just want to get better,’ she cried.

‘Me too,’ said the boy. ‘That’s what I want, too.’

She held out her arms and he climbed up onto the bed and clung to her. She smoothed the back of his head with her hands and made small shushing noises. ‘You’ve got to be strong,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to need your help.’ The boy buried his face in the flannel nightie and its smell of sick.

The man in the wheelchair stopped to examine a rack of brightly coloured ties, running the silk through his gloved fingers. A salesman in an immaculate dark blue suit raised an eyebrow but the man in the wheelchair shook his head. Just looking. He put his hands on the wheels and pushed the chair forward. The people who passed him studiously avoided eye contact, as if they were embarrassed by his disability.

He rolled slowly towards the suit section. His legs were wrapped in a thick blue wool blanket and he felt sweat trickle down his thighs. An elderly man was being measured by a young assistant while his much younger fur-coated and clearly bored wife watched. Two Japanese tourists were pulling suits off the racks, holding them up and talking animatedly. The man in the wheelchair smiled to himself. Compared with Tokyo, the prices in Harrods were probably a bargain. He never paid Harrods prices for clothes, never wore anything with a label that could be recognised.

The Arab swept into the menswear department, flanked by two Harrods executives and a trio of bodyguards. The bodyguards were thickset men in black suits and tinted sunglasses and had matching thick moustaches. Saddam Hussein lookalikes. Their eyes swept back and forth like searchlights, but the man in the wheelchair noted with some small satisfaction that they looked right through him. Cripples were always invisible. The Arab was dressed in full desert robes and looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia, totally out of place among the racks of tailored suits. Behind the Arab walked three black-robed women, their faces covered except for their eyes. One was clearly the Arab’s mother, she was short and squat and moved like a buoy bobbing in a rough sea. The other two were his wives. The man in the wheelchair propelled himself forward.

One of the wives was a Saudi princess, and by all accounts she was built like a Russian weightlifter. The other, his second wife, was a former Playboy centrefold from Utah who’d been about to embark on a movie career when she’d settled for the sheikh and his millions instead. In the black robes, it was impossible to tell the two wives apart. The man slipped his hand under the blanket.

The manager of the menswear department was gushing about how honoured he was to see the valued customer again, rubbing his hands together and bowing obsequiously. One of the bodyguards walked close to the wheelchair, checking out a man standing by the changing rooms. The man in the wheelchair smiled up at the bodyguard, but he was ignored. The silenced automatic coughed twice under the blanket and the bodyguard fell backwards, blood spreading across his white shirt from two large black holes.

The man in the wheelchair stood up, slipping out from under the blanket like a snake shedding its skin. He took three paces forward and shot the second bodyguard twice in the chest. The man was dead before his knees crumpled. The third bodyguard was reaching for his gun when he took a bullet in the sternum. As he slumped forward, clutching at his chest like a heart attack victim, the man shot him in the head, blowing blood and brain matter across the display of ties.

Shoppers began screaming and running for the exits, but the man was an oasis of calm among the panic. He aimed his gun at the Arab. The Arab’s eyes widened in terror, then almost at once he visibly relaxed. The old woman was backing away, her hands held up in front of her face, her mouth open and making loud snoring sounds.

The two wives stood stock still, frozen in terror. Close up the man could see that one was dark, with brown eyes, pockmarked skin. Obviously not the centrefold.

He turned to the other woman, levelled the gun between her big blue eyes and fired, then stepped forward and shot her again in the chest as she fell.

The man spun on his heels and walked quickly to the stairs, the gun at his side. People ran from him, leaving his way clear. Shouts and screams came from behind him, but he kept on walking, his head down. He reached the stairs and went down to the ground floor, keeping the gun pressed to his side. He walked to the Egyptian Hall and took the escalator to the lower ground floor. The screams and shouts had faded away by now, and by the time he stepped off the escalator no one was paying him any attention. He turned left and walked briskly through to the stationery department, as if he had nothing more pressing on his mind than the purchase of an executive writing set.

The door to the stationery stock room was unlocked, as he knew it would be. The man slid the gun into his belt and buttoned his jacket over it as he walked across the store room and into the entrance of the tunnel. Heating pipes ran along the length of the roof of the tunnel and he jumped up and dragged down a brown warehouseman’s coat he’d stuck there earlier. The tunnel curved to the right ahead and the man could see that he was alone. He dusted the coat off and slipped it on as he walked among boxes of merchandise waiting to be taken into the store. The tunnel was the main supply route into the store, and the reason why delivery trucks were rarely seen blocking the Knightsbridge streets above.

Glancing in a circular mirror positioned at the bend of the tunnel, he saw several workmen heading his way so he kept his head down and walked purposefully. He wasn’t challenged, nor had he been when he’d tried a dry run two days earlier.

Several electric carts rattled past, piled high with more boxes, but the drivers paid him no attention. The tunnel was about five hundred feet long and led to two lifts which went up to the main Harrods warehouse facilities. The man ignored the lifts and raced up the stairs to the single exit door which opened onto Trevor Square. A fresh- faced security guard, a telephone pressed to his ear, was looking his way, his mouth open in surprise, and the man pulled out his gun and shot him in the throat without even breaking stride. The security guard was still dying as the man closed the exit door and walked out into the sunshine. Ten minutes later he was on the tube, heading for Victoria Station.

Mike Cramer held the half-empty bottle of Famous Grouse in his hand, swirling the whisky around as he stared into the fire. He’d made himself a bacon sandwich earlier but it sat untouched on a plate by the chair. He