Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

‘I’ve got three children, Mr Cramer, so I know what I’m doing,’ said the woman.

Cramer squinted up at Allan. ‘Why?’

‘Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately. You look like shit.’

‘Thanks, Allan.’

‘Nah, seriously, we’ve got to get you ready for the photographs. The way you look, no one’s going to believe you’re a man worth bodyguarding. You look like you’ve been in a ditch for the past three weeks, your hair’s. .’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Cramer, sitting up. ‘I get the message.’ He saw Mrs Elliott looking at the scars on his stomach and chest with a look of horror on her face. ‘The last barber did that to me,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m nervous of scissors.’

Mrs Elliott frowned, then realised that he was joking. She tutted, went into the bathroom and came out with another towel which she draped over Cramer’s shoulders.

‘Do you have a parting there somewhere, Mr Cramer?’

‘The left side, I think,’ said Cramer. It was almost a year since he’d been inside a barber’s shop. He usually did the job himself with a pair of nail scissors when it got too long. Allan stood watching, his hands on his hips. ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do?’ Cramer asked him.

‘No,’ said Allan, grinning at Cramer’s discomfort.

Mrs Elliott began to comb Cramer’s hair, the wet strands sticking to the side of his face. Cramer knew that Allan was right, he did look like shit. They might be able to change his appearance but he doubted if a new haircut was going to change the way he felt.

Paulie Quinn lay face down on the mattress, but even with his eyes closed there was no escape from the light. He’d banged on the cell door and yelled until his throat was raw, but they wouldn’t turn off the fluorescent lights which glared down from behind a sheet of protective glass. They’d taken away his clothes and given him a pair of green overalls to wear. They were way too big for him and rough against his skin, like fine-grade sandpaper.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, he knew. He should have been asked if he wanted a solicitor, he should have been allowed to make a phone call, they should have at least given him a drink of water. His throat was so painful he could barely swallow. He had no idea how long they’d keep him in the cell, or how long he’d already been there. With the constant light he had no way of knowing if it was day or night.

He rolled over onto his back and rubbed his eyes, still wet from crying. The RUC officers who’d dragged him into the armoured Landrover had refused to answer his questions, they’d just sat next to him in sullen silence, nothing but contempt and hatred in their eyes. There had been no windows in the vehicle and he had no idea where they’d taken him. He was eventually dragged out and handed over to three men in casual clothes, tough-looking men with short haircuts and wide shoulders who looked like they might be army but weren’t wearing uniforms.

Paulie sat up and rested his back against the whitewashed wall. Apart from the mattress on the floor, the cell was empty. There wasn’t even a toilet. As far as Paulie knew, there were always toilets in police cells. And observation hatches in the door so that they could look inside. The door to the cell was white-painted metal and there was no hatch, not even a keyhole. Wherever they’d taken him, it wasn’t to a police station. He buried his head in his hands and began to sob. He wanted his mother, and he wanted Davie. Thoughts of his brother made him cry all the more. Davie had been shot three times, maybe four, and Paulie had seen the life ebb from his eyes, leaving them cold and staring. The police hadn’t allowed Paulie to touch his brother, he’d begged and pleaded but they’d dragged him away.

It was his own fault that his brother had been killed. He should never have kept the gun, never given it to Davie. He began to bang the back of his head against the wall, softly at first, then harder, not caring about the pain, wanting to turn back time, wanting to die in his brother’s place.

Mike Cramer heard the gunshots as he walked along the corridor to the gymnasium. He counted the rapid-fire shots. There were eighteen in all, fired in less time than it took Cramer to take two strides. He opened the door to see Allan inspecting one of the man-size cardboard targets. ‘Morning, Mike,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘How did you do?’ asked Cramer.

‘You don’t want to know, it’d just depress you,’ grinned Allan, popping the empty magazine out of the pistol. ‘First-class haircut. Maybe I’ll ask Mrs Elliott to give me a going over.’ The floor was littered with empty brass casings. ‘Have you seen one of these?’ He handed the gun over, butt first.

Cramer shook his head. Across the barrel were the words Heckler amp; Koch and VP70 was stamped into the butt. ‘It’s a Heckler amp; Koch VP70 machine pistol. Fires double action only, so there’s no safety, muzzle velocity of 1,180 feet per second, eighteen in the clip, weighs two and a half pounds fully loaded.’

‘Feels good,’ said Cramer, weighing it in the palm of his hand. ‘Are you going to be carrying this?’ He gave it back to Allan.

‘Nah, this is Martin’s, I’m just playing with it. I’ll stick with a Glock 18.’ Allan picked up a shoulder stock from the table and slotted it into the back of the pistol. ‘This is the kicker, There’s a selector switch here on the top front of the stock that lets you set it to fire three-round bursts, fully automatic.’ He gave Cramer a pair of ear protectors. ‘Watch this.’

Allan flicked the selector switch to ‘3’ and aimed at the target, pushing the stock into his shoulder as he sighted down the barrel. He pulled the trigger and three shots rang out, so close together as to be almost indistinguishable. Allan fired all eighteen shots at the target, and Cramer was impressed to see that they all hit the centre of the bullseye. Allan was one of the best shots Cramer had ever seen.

Cramer nodded his approval. ‘Nice shooting.’

‘Yeah, well I’m not used to it. Like I said, it’s Martin’s baby really.’

He walked over to the table and waved his hand over a selection of handguns. ‘Have a look at these, Mike.’

Cramer bent over the table and studied the three handguns. All three were considerably smaller than his Browning Hi-Power.

‘The one on the right is a. .’

‘Walther PPK,’ interrupted Cramer. ‘7.65mm calibre, blowaback, semi-automatic. Seven in the clip.’ He pulled back the slide and chambered a round. ‘It’s what James Bond used, right?’

‘That I don’t know, but it was designed for the German services. PPK stands for Polizei Pistole Kurz. And that’s a 9mm version you’ve got there. We’ve given it a very light trigger, just over two pounds pull will do it. That goes for all the guns here.’

Cramer clicked the safety on and put it back down on the table. The second gun was a Beretta Model 1934. Cramer picked it up. It was shorter than the length of his hand by at least an inch.

‘It weighs the same as the PPK, about one and a quarter pounds, and it’s also got a seven-round magazine. It’s another 9mm. Not much to choose between it and the Walther, to be honest.’

Cramer put it back down on the table and picked up the third handgun. It looked like a child’s toy and the word ‘Baby’ was spelled out at the bottom of the butt. Above it he noticed the FN logo that denoted the Fabrique National Herstal Lige Company of Belgium, the manufacturers of Cramer’s Browning.

‘That’s the baby brother of your Hi-Power,’ said Allan. ‘It was actually marketed under the name Baby Browning. FN have manufactured them since 1906 but you don’t see too many of them about these days. They’re banned in the States.’