We study a percolation model on \(\mathbb {R}^d\) called the random connection model. For d large, we use the lace expansion to prove that the critical two-point connection probability decays like \(|x|^{-(d-2)}\) as \(|x| \rightarrow \infty \) , with possible anisotropic decay. Our proof also applies to nearest-neighbour Bernoulli percolation on \(\mathbb {Z}^d\) in \(d \ge 11\) and simplifies considerably the proof given by Hara in 2008. The method is based on the recent deconvolution strategy of Liu and Slade and uses an \(L^p\) version of Hara’s induction argument.