The Criminal Escapades of Geoffrey Larkin (38 page)

The backward glance was a disaster. In the split second it took he veered off the path and hit the embankment while Sooty carried on weaving and wobbling on his descent down the hill until he came to a slithering, sliding, ungainly halt, twenty yards further on than Geoff.

Georgio, the nearest pursuer, was on the point of giving up the chase. He was dizzy and gasping for oxygen, he had gone weak at the knees but on seeing one of the cyclists hit the banking then lose his balance before taking a tumble that left him on his back, he put on one last extra spurt.

The same applied to Oscar. He too was wheezing and gasping for air but, seeing what had happened, carried on down the path in a slow, stumbling trot.

Geoff was on his knees and on the point of dragging himself up from the ground as Georgio staggered towards him taking in a great lung full of air. All he had to do was grab the little son of a bitch in front of him, lie on him and hold him down until his uncle arrived. Easy peasy!

As he moved forward, arms outstretched, Geoff stood upright throwing two handfuls of dirt and dust between Georgio's outstretched arms into his gaping mouth.

He then kicked out hard, aiming between his opponent's legs.

Not only did the fine grit blind Georgio but he also inhaled a vast amount of the dust which induced a severe fit of coughing. On top of this the unexpected kick in his testicles brought the big man to his knees.

By the time Oscar arrived his nephew was still coughing and gasping for breath, Geoff meanwhile was away on his mountain bike chasing downhill to catch up with the figure in front of him who had set off on his own again, but was struggling to stay upright on his bike as it bounced along the potholed and badly rutted path.

Mr. Brown was pacing the lounge of the hotel in Pisa. Marco was not answering his mobile phone. The two other heavies in the room were in the corner keeping a low profile. Mr. Brown was not very happy, grinding his teeth as he continuously paced between the lounge door and the large windows that overlooked the road outside, glaring occasionally at his two companions as if they were the cause of this latest breakdown in communications with his interpreter.

Marco had a lot of explaining to do. Mr. Brown's conversation with the Italians on the long journey back from the east coast had stimulated his suspicious mind. For some reason, Marco had not been passing all the information on to him, which had been forwarded by the Italians. Instead he had been keeping certain important details to himself.

Suddenly, Mr. Brown stopped his pacing at the lounge window as he watched an old, white Fiat car pull up in front of the hotel.

Luca and his associate, Simone Campagni, left the vehicle and made their way to the hotel entrance. Mr. Brown did not notice the car parked opposite the hotel in the shade out of the early morning sun, or recognise its two passengers who looked very similar to the two loud American tourists that had been in the car park at the port of Brindi. He turned to face Luca as he entered the lounge.

‘Yes!' he snarled at the startled Luca who abruptly stopped in the doorway causing Simone Campagni who was following on close behind to stumble into his back.

‘Ah, Signor Brown! I to you come direct, not possible contact Signor Marco.'

‘Tell me something fucking new,' growled Mr. Brown.

‘One our contact, taxi man he inform I, Luca, address of Inglese,' answered a beaming Luca.

For the first time since he had arrived in Italy. Mr. Brown smiled.

‘Great! Just fucking great!' he couldn't hide the glee in his voice, this was the first good news he had been given since the briefcase had been stolen outside Stockport railway station.

Snapping his fingers at the two heavies he shouted, ‘Cars!' The two big men hurried off as fast as they could to bring the vehicles from the hotel's rear car park around to the front of the building, glad to be away from the strained atmosphere of the hotel lounge.

Brown climbed into the passenger seat of the Audi alongside the driver and Luca jumped in the rear.

Luca's partner, Simone, joined the other driver in the second Audi. It was after one and a half hours of driving that Mr. Brown eventually broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘There seem to be a lot of police cars around,' turning to face Luca, indicating the fourth police vehicle which had just swept past within the last ten minutes, with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

‘Si, si, signor Grande Banco, Sicuro. BOOM!'

‘Sounds to me like someone's pulled off a big bank heist boss,' commented the driver.

‘Yeh, you'd better slow down. With all these coppers around we don't want to be fuckin' pulled up for speeding.'

Following Luca's directions the two Audi saloons entered the small village and pulled up outside the general store which sold just about everything you could imagine.

‘Taxi driver inform Luca, Inglese with German in Grande, nero Mercedes, call here many times.' The young, very smartly dressed Italian left the Audi and entered the shop returning moments later. ‘Inglese at villa end of road, Signor Brown.'

‘It gets better by the minute,' said Mr. Brown squeezing his knuckles together. ‘Drive on, James and don't spare the fucking horses,' he added in a joking manner to the driver.

The two Audis followed the road to the end where it stopped just past the drive that led to a large building on a slight incline. They swung between the two stone pillars into the drive and then carried on up the slope to come to a halt in front of the villa behind an old white Fiat.

The passengers poured out of the cars, a quick glance showed the fiat was empty; they quickly split and started to search the villa and its surrounding gardens. It was Mr. Brown with one of his associates who discovered a slightly dazed Marco supporting himself against the kitchen units. Unfortunately for them, even in this condition, Marco was a formable opponent and he still had his brass knuckle duster. By the time they had overpowered him they both had deep facial cuts and large bruises to show for their efforts.

‘So Marco, my fine Cypriot friend, I see you've been developing your double crossing tricks. You people can't help yourselves, can you?' sneered Mr. Brown as he looked at the contents of the bag on the kitchen table, while he held a cold, water soaked towel to a deep graze on his forehead. ‘But it looks like you underestimated our mutual friend, Mr. Larkin!'

‘No one else in the villa boss,' voiced the other heavy as he entered the room, looking around in surprise at a trussed up Marco amongst the debris in the smashed up kitchen.

A bowl of cold water thrown over Marco's head by Mr. Brown started to bring him back into the world of the living. The Italians attracted by the rumpus had now crowded into the kitchen, just as Marco regained consciousness.

Everything slowly came back into focus for Marco. As he looked around wildly at the unfriendly faces he saw in the room which were all looking at him, his struggles were of little use as he was roughly manhandled to his feet.

He was then half dragged, half carried outside to be unceremoniously dumped in the rear seats of the Audi between two of his previous associates. Marco was still in a semi dazed state wondering what had happened to his brother and nephew as they were nowhere to be seen.

Mr. Brown needed to get instructions. His employees would be pleased to have regained possession of their belongings, if the contents of the bag were genuine; the silver ingots put a different twist on the situation. He needed everything to be clarified by someone further up the chain before he took any further action.

*

Georgio and Oscar had followed the path for a while but not seeing anything of the two cyclists they had given up the chase. As they came back slowly over the hill they were just in time to see the rear end of the second Audi car disappearing down the drive, leaving a cloud of fine dust in its wake.

When they searched the villa it was deserted, there was no sign of Marco, just lots of broken furniture, broken crockery and a splattering of crimson blood which was slowly being absorbed by the terracotta floor tiles. ‘There's been one hell of a fight here,' exclaimed Oscar, stating the obvious to his nephew, as they both looked around the badly damaged kitchen.

As the two men eventually prepared to leave, on inspecting their rented Fiat they found all four tyres had been slashed.

What had started out as a promising day with the potential of obtaining a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow had turned out to be nightmare for the two Cypriots.

In their patent leather city shoes it was a long painful walk along the loose limestone road for Oscar and Georgio. Eventually they managed to get a lift on a passing tractor which obligingly took them to a bus stop, after a two hour wait they boarded an autobus to the nearby town of Castligion Fiorentino, they then took a taxi from the bus terminal to the railway station. Ironically the taxi was driven by the same driver who had given the Italian Luca working for Mr. Brown the information about Geoff and his friends.

They never saw or heard from their relation Marco again, even though they tried constantly to make contact with him on his mobile phone.

Eventually running out of money and having no contacts in Italy they were forced to abandon their search. The disillusioned pair eventually made their way back to their island of Cyprus.

The two so-called American tourists that had followed Mr. Brown from his hotel to the villa and back again to the outskirts of Pisa decided to keep following him when the cars divided rather than the other car and its four occupants. Mr. Brown and his driver went straight back to the hotel.

An hour later the waiting couple saw the second car arrive and park behind the hotel alongside the first Audi. They recorded that only three men were in the car; all three then entered the hotel.

*

Geoff, peddling frantically down the hillside track travelling as fast as he dared, eventually caught up with Sooty just as he failed to take a sharp bend sending the big lad straight ahead into a thick clump of bushes. Braking hard, Geoff came to a slithering halt in a cloud of small stones and fine dust.

Fearfully looking back, Geoff saw there was no sight or sound of their pursuers following on the path above them.

‘Are you alright, mate?' Geoff shouted as the big lad painfully disentangled himself from the bushes and the frame of the mountain bike. Sooty did not need to answer; Geoff could see he was suffering.

The left hand side of his face was swollen, turning a deep, dark, blue whilst his eye was bloodshot and he was still spitting blood all from the blow and damage caused by Marco's knuckle duster.

‘I just need to sleep Geoff,' Sooty mumbled through thick, swollen lips.

‘NO! You can't do that matey. Those heavies could come down the path at any minute so we've got to keep moving.' Even though Geoff tried, he had failed to hide the hint of panic in his voice. He was extremely concerned. Sooty was obviously suffering from concussion and there was no way he could allow him to sleep at the moment, especially, as he'd read somewhere of people falling asleep after being concussed and never waking up again.

‘According to the lads, there's a stream at the bottom of this hill, mate. We'll get some cold water there; it might take the swelling down a bit.' The last thing he wanted to do at the moment was to take Sooty to a hospital. Hospitals meant identification and that meant trouble.

Big trouble!

The track led to a narrow road at the bottom of the hill which crossed the stream by means of a stone arched bridge, as it was now midsummer, there was now just a small trickle of water in the bed of the watercourse.

They pushed their bikes down the embankment and under the bridge, here they were out of the sun in the cool shade of the bridge also out of sight from anyone travelling on the road or following them down the path. It was here that Geoff bathed Sooty's bruised and badly swollen face in between taking regular nervous glances up towards the path that zigzagged down the hill opposite.

Geoff now realised that this meant there must be a change of plan as all the stations in this area would definitely be watched by the mob. Sooty in his present state would attract too much unwanted attention; to try and catch the train would be extremely dangerous.

That, as far as he could see left only one alternative. They would have to bike for a couple of days, keeping to the country lanes and paths, until they were a safe distance from this area. Hopefully, Sooty's swollen face would have gone down by then and he would be steadier on his feet so with a little luck they could risk catching a train to Switzerland or Austria.

Also, on top of all these problems, he had no way of knowing if John and Derek Bolton had made it over the border without being pulled up. He had his mobile but the battery was flat and the charger was back in the villa and that's where it would have to stay because there was no way he was going to risk going back there. No, his most immediate and serious problem was Sooty's condition, and that was going to dictate their progress or lack of it for the next few days.

‘We'll stay here for a while mate, until it's safe enough to carry on and we'll try and get the swelling on your face down a little.'

Sooty didn't answer, it was too painful to try and speak so he just gave Geoff a ‘thumbs up' sign. By now it was a scorching hot day so it would have been silly to have tried to ride their bikes in such heat. Underneath the bridge in the shade it was nice and cool. The continual bathing with the cold running water of the stream was giving Sooty a lot of relief, though not reducing the swelling but his previous urge of wanting to sleep seemed to have left him.
No gain without pain,
Geoff thought to himself as he looked on as Sooty continued to bathe his face, but he wouldn't say anything to the big lad, in his present condition he might not appreciate this particular proverb of Sir Reginald.

*

In Castligion Floretino it was 2.30 on Monday morning, two of the local policemen were making their way back to the station for their coffee break now that the celebrations of the pageant had come to an end, when they had received a message on their radio telling them to check the north gates to the town as several complaints had been made that they were chained closed.

There had been no notification of this on the station order sheet. The station superintendent cursed the young idiots attending the festival; they must think it was very funny to play such a practical joke by stopping the traffic using that entrance.

He told the officers to try and free, and reopen the gates, then as an afterthought he rang them back instructing them to also check around the Municipal Building before reporting back to the station. It took the two policemen half an hour to remove the chains and then reopen the heavy wooden gates to the north entrance of the town.

It was just coming light when the two officers made an urgent call to the station informing the superintendent that the door of the Municipal Building had been blown down. The new vault, positioned temporarily in that building's entrance hall, had been blown apart and its contents were scattered all over the floor surrounded by a great deal of rubble.

The station superintendent was at the scene within minutes, he went sick to his stomach when he viewed the amount of destruction that had taken place. First the wall in front of the building had been partially destroyed; the heavy wooden doors to the entrance had been blown apart.

There was a gaping hole in the wall alongside the safe where part of an internal wall had collapsed but the most serious disaster was the custom-made, super strong, supposedly impregnable vault that had been placed temporarily in the entrance hall. It had been just a few days previously that he had personally supervised a delivery of pure silver ingots plus two wooden cases of which he had not been told the contents.