The Samsara Project - David Burgess (early reader books .txt) 📗

to try and find out what happened with John. Tracking down Ms. Dupree could be child’s play compared to that.”
“I’ll make a start on this anyway,” said Geoffrey, “I’ll let you know if I get anywhere.
Geoffrey left the hospital and walked the four minutes it took to Haymarket North, the nearest tube station. He bought a one way ticket to Soho. Once on the platform he had less than a three minute wait for the Circle Line train to arrive. Twelve minutes later he got off the train and headed out into Soho and the daylight. Geoffrey’s first stop was the Hare and Hounds pub. The pub was a well known hang out for members of London’s organised crime gangs. Geoffrey was a well known face and had visited the pub far more times than he cared to remember. He looked around the bar area and soon saw who he was looking for. Sitting by himself at a corner table was Dimitre, one of the Russian Mafia’s foot soldiers, the equivalent of the American mobs ‘wise guy’.
Geoffrey walked over to Dimitre’s table and sat down. “Dimitre, it’s been a long time,” said Geoffrey, “good to see you again.”
Dimitre looked towards the bar, he raised his right hand, “Georgia bring my friend’s vodka over here, and make sure it’s large and real, none of that cheap imitation rubbish you try to sell to the tourists.”
“Thank-you Dimitre, as I said it’s always good to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same for you,” came the heavily accented reply, “where ever you are trouble is never far behind and right now is not the time for more trouble.”
“I take it we’re talking about the murder of Suzie Reeves,” said Geoffrey.
“The central council have set a deadline of seven days to find the murderer and bring them in front of the council. That was four days ago and no one has any idea. Even our people in the police have no clues.”
Georgia brought over Geoffrey’s vodka and placed it on the table in front of him.
“Is there anything else you would like Mr Dimitre?” Dimitre dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
“I see you haven’t lost any of your Russian warmth and hospitality,”
“I thought you said you could help me,” responded Dimitre
“I think we maybe we can help each other,” said Geoffrey.
“You think so?”
Geoffrey slid a piece of paper across the table towards Dimitre. He picked up the paper and looked at it. “Who is this?” he asked.
Geoffrey took a drink from his glass. Despite the number of times Geoffrey had drunk pure Russian Vodka he had never gotten use to the way it burned his throat.
“You know you should drink that down in one,” said Dimitre, “then you’ll be a real Russian, like me.”
Geoffrey just held up his hands in mock surrender.
“You Westerners have no idea how to have a good time.”
“Maybe not,” replied Geoffrey, “but we do know how to keep our liver intact.”
“You also have good sense of humour and I like that about you. You are good man.”
Geoffrey was beginning to wonder if it was Dimitre or the vodka talking.
“The picture,” said Geoffrey, trying to bring the conversation back on track, “have you ever seen this woman?”
Dimitre looked at the picture, “I don’t think so, and this is a very old photograph, look at her clothes.”
“It’s not the best picture but maybe she likes to dress up in old clothes, I don’t know the woman but I hoped you might. Have a closer look.”
Dimitre held the picture up to the light so he could see it better, “maybe I have seen her somewhere before,” he said, “you know her name.”
“Sorry, no I don’t, she could be using any one of a number of different names. Why don’t you keep hold of the picture and show it around. Give me a call if you find out who she is.”
“Why are you after her Geoffrey, she stood you up?”
“No nothing like that,” replied Geoffrey, “if you must know she’s the woman who murdered Suzie Reeves. Find her and you find your killer. How long did you say the council had given you to find Suzie’s killer?
“I have a couple of days left,”
“This will be the best lead you could ever have, but, if you find her I want to know. I want to know where she lives before you do anything.”
“Don’t worry; I won’t be doing anything to the lady. The council have given strict instructions the killer is to be brought before them alive.”
“I was banking on that,” replied Geoffrey, “you have my number; I’ll wait to hear from you. Don’t forget, you call me first”
Geoffrey stood up and walked out of the pub and into the first taxi that he saw. Geoffrey spent the rest of the afternoon calling in as many favours as he could. He stopped off at a local CopyPrint shop and had one hundred and fifty copies of the photograph made up into an A4 sized poster. It read above the photograph, ‘Please help, have you seen this woman, then underneath ‘suffers from memory loss and may not know who she is. Finally Geoffrey had included his secure mobile number. He started to fly post in telephone boxes, bus shelters, tube stations, post boxes and as many pub doors as he could find. When he had finished Geoffrey was exhausted. He had covered a lot of ground and was quietly confident his work would produce results.
 
Chapter 18

Since John had been remanded in custody, Geoffrey had kept in touch with Martin, John’s solicitor, who had already made a couple of visits to the prison to discuss tactics with John. The defence were relying on the fact that the police had still not discovered what had happened to Tracy. The ambulance had not been traced despite good forensic evidence left at the scene. The police were still sticking with their attempted murder charge but with only circumstantial evidence their case was starting to look very weak.
John’s defence would argue in court that there was actually no evidence that any crime at all had been committed. It was highly possible that Ms Tracy Rae had not been injured at all and that the whole scenario had been staged. It mattered not one jot to the defence why that would be the case, all they had to do was create doubt in the minds of the magistrates. If that happened then John would certainly be released on bail and, there was even a slim chance the case would be dismissed before it ever reached a crown court. Their mood was high, there was even talk of a party but they then decided it would be better not to count their chickens too early.
For the past five days Andrew had, without success, been trying to contact DCS Hughes. He had called his office and his mobile leaving numerous messages on his answering machine and with his secretary, all to no avail. Andrew was not the only one puzzled by this behaviour, DCS Hughes, had been very keen to help as much as he could. The last time anyone had seen him was at the first court hearing. “I’m sure there’s a good reason behind his disappearance. Give him time, we’ll hear soon enough.” said Pat.
Geoffrey agreed. He was just about to say something when his secure mobile rang. He hit the answer key, “Geoffrey Adamson.” In all the call lasted for seven minutes, Geoffrey had been making notes throughout the call. Andrew and Pat did not speak to each other during the call but had glanced over to each other a number of times. When Geoffrey ended the call he was looking over the notes he had made when Pat spoke, “Are you going to tell us what the call was about? It came through on the secure phone so it must have something to do with either us or John.”
Geoffrey nodded, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” Geoffrey then recounted the conversation he had with Dimitre a couple of days ago, he also told them about the hundred and fifty fliers he had posted around the area or handed out to contacts.
“Someone bitten?” asked Pat.
“Looks like it,” replied Geoffrey, “I have an area and approximate address for Ms. Dupree. It’s not confirmed but we can’t ignore it.”
“What are we sat around here for then?” said Andrew, “let’s go.”
“Slow down a bit,” said Geoffrey,” we need to have some sort of a plan. This may or may not be genuine information, either way we could blow it for ourselves if we don’t do this the right way.”
Andrew sat down again.
“Sorry,” said Andrew.
“No need to be” replied Geoffrey, “but I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve built up a healthy scepticism about first time informers. Mainly why, what’s in it for them?”
“So what do you suggest we do?” asked Pat.
“I’ll check out the address,” said Geoffrey, “but I would like the two of you to park a bit down the road, just in case.”
Just over an hour and ten minutes later Geoffrey pulled up in a side road half a mile away from the address he had been given. “Don’t forget to keep your mobiles switched on. If your phone rings three times and then stops just get to the house as fast as you can.
Geoffrey got out of the car and started to walk up the road towards number three hundred and fifty four Lemurs Avenue, a few hundred yards away from the target house he crossed over the road but not before taking a quick glance at the number of the house he was walking past, it was two hundred and twenty one. “That’s about seventy houses away,” thought Geoffrey. As though he was late for an appointment Geoffrey walked purposefully along the pavement only occasionally glancing across the road. All the while he was counting down the number of houses he was passing in order to give him a guide as to as to how much further away the target house was. Thirty houses, twenty houses. Geoffrey head stayed still, his eyes though moved to the right. He had a good view of the target house. It was a two story Georgian style mid terrace property. The original sash windows had long ago been replaced by aluminium framed double glazing that matched the half glazed front door. Parked outside was an immaculate nineteen seventy three Ford Capri. The car gave Geoffrey an idea. He stopped and looked at the car, and then, slowly he walked over towards the dark metallic blue car. He stopped again and admired it firstly from the side and then he walked to the front as though he was studying it. The car was a two litre Ghia and was fitted with a black vinyl roof. He started to walk clockwise around the car, he had to admit it was in immaculate condition, concourse, was a word that sprung to mind. Out of the corner of his eye Geoffrey noticed one of the upstairs net curtains twitch, only very slightly but enough to tell him that someone was in and that that someone was taking an interest in him. For effect Geoffrey crouched down and had a look at the inside of the Capri. The seats were half tan leather with beige coloured cloth inserts. A small three spoke steering wheel masked some of the cars six instruments. To complete the cars look it was fitted with a Motorola period push button car