efforts of the two officers to keep him heading in the right direction, despite the handcuffs that secured his wrists in front of him.
Two other suspects were already standing beside the desk, accompanied by three uniformed officers, but these two men were not giving anybody any trouble.
“What’s the charge?” the desk sergeant asked, eyeing the approaching trio.
“The usual,” the constable replied. “Malicious damage, resisting arrest and abusive behavior. And once we’ve shut him up and got a Breathalyzer mouthpiece between his lips, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to add drunk and disorderly to that lot.”
After a couple of minutes, while the sergeant completed the processing of the other two men, the dark- haired man seemed to calm down a little, possibly realizing that he had no chance of getting out of the police station, at least until his handcuffs had been removed.
“Where did you find him?”
“He was cutting his way through the boundary fence around the new hockey stadium,” the constable said. “We were coming down the street in the car and saw him doing it. Had a crowbar and a club hammer with him as well as a set of bolt-croppers, so he obviously intended to do some damage once he got inside. Oh, and a couple of cans of spray paint as well. They’re all in the car outside-we’ll haul them in here as evidence as soon as he’s been processed. He’s a big bugger. Took us all our time to keep him quiet until the van arrived to take him away.”
“Open-and-shut case, then,” the sergeant remarked, looking at the third suspect, who had now fallen silent, but was glaring at him with naked hostility. “This joker say why he was doing it?”
The constable nodded. “Didn’t shut up about it, even when we were sitting on him. Pretty much what you’d expect. He told us the Olympics were a sham, some international conspiracy organized by big business simply to make money, and had nothing at all to do with sport. You know, I think he might have a point about that. He also seemed to know quite a lot about the costs involved. He reckons London will take years to get out of debt because of the Games.”
“He’s got a couple of soul mates over there, then,” the sergeant said, aiming the point of his pen toward the two men who had already been processed and were now sitting in a couple of chairs that lined the wall near the desk. “I don’t suppose he has any idea how getting into the site and breaking a few windows is going to help the situation? And if he was targeting the hockey stadium, I suppose that proves he knows sod all about sport, ’cause there’ll only be about a dozen people who’ll want to watch the matches.
“Right, then. Name?” The sergeant paused and looked expectantly at the dark-haired man.
The man shrugged. “You choose,” he snapped.
“I just love comedians.” The sergeant turned back to the uniformed constable. “Any ID on him?”
“Nothing useful. When we checked him at the scene, all we found in his pockets were twenty quid in fivers, a day ticket for the tube, a comb, a handkerchief and a door key. No wallet, driving 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 cliche that when a stranger enters a particular kind of bar, all conversations stop as the locals assess the new arrival. But like all cliches, 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 men used 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, something that told them that the man they were looking at was more than capable of matching them blow for blow and that, whatever they started, he would be quite capable of finishing.
And as they stared at him, Cross’s two companions walked across to the table and flanked him, one standing either side of him. The conversations in the bar died away again, as the locals switched their attention to the silent tableau in their midst. After a few seconds, the biggest of the three men in front of Cross shrugged, then turned round and walked away, the other two following him.
As Cross sat down at the table, his two companions looked at each other, and one of them nodded. Then they both strode across to the bar to order a round of drinks. Pints, obviously.
“Time for introductions, I suppose,” the man who’d bought the drinks said, after taking a sip of his beer. “My name’s Charlie Williams, and my mate here’s called John Eaton. Is your name really Alex Cross?”
The third man shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got a very good reason for using an alias, so if it’s okay with you two-in fact, even if it isn’t okay with you-I’m sticking with it.”
“We can live with that. So you’re not happy about the Olympics either?”
“I don’t give a toss about the bloody Olympics. That’s just a good target. I’ve got my own reasons for doing what I do.”
“And they are…?”
“Personal, mate, that’s what they are. Let’s just say I was shat upon from a great height, just for trying to do my bloody job, and this is one way of getting some kind of payback.”
Williams nodded. “Okay. So you’ve got a grudge against authority. But we couldn’t help overhearing what that young copper said about you. Were you really targeting the hockey stadium?”
Cross took a sip of his beer and grinned at him. “To be perfectly honest with you, I had no idea what was on
