Echo of the Reich Read Online Free PDF Page A

license or car keys. Probably stashed them somewhere while he did his bit of amateur B and E.”
    The sergeant glanced back at the suspect. “Come on, mate,” he said, “don’t mess me around. You’re only making things more difficult for yourself. What’s your name?”
    The dark-haired man shrugged again. “Alex,” he said finally. “Alex Cross. No ‘e,’” he added.
    The sergeant looked at him somewhat questioningly. “I’ve heard that name somewhere before,” he said, “somewhere recently. Is that your final offer?”
    “It’ll do for now.”
    “Right. If that’s the way you want to play it, that’s fine by me.”
    Just over an hour later, the three men walked out of the Stratford police station together, Cross having apparently convinced the sergeant that he had given his real name and address, or maybe the middle-aged police officer really didn’t care too much about the veracity of the information he was writing down, as long as he’d completed the paperwork and ticked all the appropriate boxes. Although all three men had been arrested, their actions had not been deemed sufficiently serious for them to be detained. Cross had even passed the Breathalyzer test, despite the smell of alcohol that the constable had noticed.
    For a few moments, Cross glanced around him, up and down the street, then he zipped up his leather jacket, stuck his hands in his pockets and strode away.
    A couple of seconds later, a voice rang out down the street. “Hey! Hang on a minute.”
    Cross stopped in his tracks and glanced back to see the two men walking swiftly toward him.
    “What?” he demanded.
    “You fancy a drink somewhere?”
    Cross hesitated, then nodded. “Sure, why not? Get rid of the taste of that cop shop.”
    They walked the short distance to the nearest pub, its rough and battered exterior a perfect reflection of the appearance of most of its clientele. Cross pushed open the door and the three men stepped into the saloon bar.
    It’s a familiar cliché that when a stranger enters a particularkind of bar, all conversations stop as the locals assess the new arrival. But like all clichés, it contains more than a grain of truth because there are places like that even today, places where any new face is a potential source of trouble or perhaps of opportunity. The East End of London has more than its fair share of such establishments—pubs that the tourists never visit, where the only bar food on offer will be packets of crisps and pork scratchings, and where anyone asking for a drink as suspect and effeminate as a glass of wine is likely to be thrown bodily out into the street. These are places where deals are discussed and concluded, where a man wishing to obtain a weapon for a robbery can lease a pistol and a fully loaded magazine for a day or a week, where a contract for the permanent disappearance of a business rival or an enemy can be negotiated, and the price agreed, and where strangers are at best tolerated for the money they hand over, but are always discouraged from paying a return visit.
    As Cross pushed his way in, the buzz of conversation didn’t stop, but it certainly diminished as most of the men—and there were no women in sight—glanced at him and his two companions. Then, apparently seeing nothing particularly threatening or of interest in the new arrivals, the faces turned away again, and muttered conversations were resumed.
    Four men were just getting up from a scratched and battered circular table in the far corner of the bar, and another three men were heading that way to commandeer the seats. But Cross got there first, and just stood beside the table, staring at the approaching trio.
    All three were big and bulky, their knuckles and faces scarred from past disagreements. They were clearly menused to getting their own way, and not afraid to resort to physical persuasion if other negotiating tactics failed. But it was as if they saw something in Cross’s eyes that warned them off,