The Last Queen of England Read Free Page A

laughing into a PA system as he told his audience not to try this at home.
    He pushed out onto the road between the cars that were parked bumper-to-bumper along the kerb.   The taxi he had his eye on - the only taxi he could see - was further down than it first looked.   He waved as he drew closer and he had to smile to himself when someone else got in and the taxi pulled away.   He looked back towards the restaurant as another black cab turned into the street.
    Touchdown, he thought.
    Being the big Washington Redskins fan he was, Tayte started to run for that touchdown now, the cool sensation on his back letting him know that he would soon be soaked to the skin if he didn’t make it.   The taxi’s light was on, which was a good sign.   He supposed it was making a drop off and he wished it would slow down so he could be there waiting for it when it did.   He picked up his pace a little but soon had to slow down again.   He was panting by half way.
    “Still gotta lose a few pounds, JT,” he told himself, having lost count of the number of times he’d said that.
    The taxi stopped in the street directly outside Rules restaurant and when Tayte saw Marcus and Jean make a beeline for it he smiled to himself again and thought how typical that was.   If he’d wanted to impress Jean, he’d just failed miserably.   He stopped running and tried to control his breathing as he walked, returning Marcus’s wave as the driver got out of the taxi.
    That was when Tayte knew something was wrong.
    A taxi driver getting out of their vehicle for a customer without baggage was unusual enough, but this man, dressed in a long black coat, was wearing a full-face plastic mask: the kind you buy in a novelty shop.   The dark-haired figure walked casually around the front of the car towards the restaurant, and Tayte could see now that he had no passenger, so he wasn’t dropping off.   He also knew that black cabs didn’t usually operate on a private hire basis, so the driver wasn’t there to pick up a pre-arranged fare.   And why the mask?
    The first gunshot didn’t seem real.
    Tayte froze and just stood in the road as he watched the action unfold, as though he’d just stepped into a movie set.   All of a sudden he could smell the rain in the air, mingling with the kitchen fumes from the vents along the street.   People around him began to run as others crouched and kept still.   A woman screamed somewhere nearby and a young boy began to cry.   Tayte saw them through a gap between the cars: the mother holding the boy to her with one arm while the other held out an umbrella like a shield, useless as that would be.
    Then slowly, still unable to believe what was happening, Tayte turned back to the man in the mask.   His gun was levelled at Marcus.   There can’t have been more than six feet between the two of them.   His friend was clutching his shoulder where the first bullet must have struck.   He watched Marcus shake his head at the gunman, slowly and purposefully.   Pleading.   All Tayte could think about was that his friend needed him and he was too far away to help.   His awareness was so heightened that he thought he saw the second bullet leave the muzzle, and the sound it made brought everything into painful reality.
    No! Tayte yelled, but no sound came out.   He began to run again, eyes fixed on Marcus as he watched his friend stagger and fall.   He saw Jean then.   Marcus was down and she was beside him, looking up at the man in the mask as Tayte watched him turn the gun on her.   He didn’t think about it.   He jumped at the nearest car and slid across the wet bonnet, falling hard onto the pavement on the other side.   The gunman seemed to be taking his time over Jean.   At least, that’s how it looked to Tayte.   He saw him stoop to pick up Marcus’s briefcase, the gun trained on Jean’s head the whole time.   As Tayte picked himself up he grabbed a shopping bag from someone beside him and hurled