Run For Your Life

By David Hardham

A work colleague asks Harriet to try and locate her missing 20yo brother who has run away from home. Harri, as she is affectionately known, uses her skills as a researcher for the State Library to deduce where he would be hiding and successfully locates him.

Harri is contacted by a leading Government Official after reading of her success in a national newspaper. His wife has mysteriously disappeared whilst on safari in East Africa with a family of four and he asks Harri to see if she determine what happened to his wife. Harri travels to East Africa and joins the family to retrace their last known footsteps but with little success.
Months later, a sighting of a white woman is reported and Harri returns to the African continent to continue the search but she is captured by the kidnappers and threatened with death. Harri must devise an escape and rescue plan if they are to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Hardham
• Release date: Dec 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311404510

David Hardham

David Hardham was born and raised in Melbourne and has worked in the IT industry all his working life including stints in London, Singapore and South Africa. He has travelled extensively, both within Australia as well as many European and Asian countries. In his early twenties, David crossed the entire African continent by road from North to South.

Book preview

THE FINDER

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

By

David Hardham

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PUBLISHED BY:

David Hardham on Smashwords

The Finder

Run for your Life

Copyright 2014 by David Hardham

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All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Acknowledgements

To everyone who has supported me and encouraged me to keep going and to write new stories, I give a big thank you.

Rather than write a full novel, I have chosen to go down the path of short stories and these have in turn been linked together. Although they are not a series with each episode being a separate story, there is a connection between them via the characters and some events.

A special thank you to Deb who has had to put up with me disappearing into the writers cave so that I could put more words together and eventually complete these stories.

Please note that I use Australian spelling throughout. You will see doubled letters (e.g. focussed), ou’s (e.g. colour) and ‘re’ (centre) as well as a few other differences from American spelling.

I have provided some maps, courtesy of Google Maps, at the back of the book to enable readers to identify with the locations used.

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THE FINDER

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

Chapter 1

The workbench was strewn with newspapers in a seemingly random order. However, the keen eye and dexterous hands darted over the printed paper like a cat chasing a mouse. From time to time, the keyboard of the laptop computer clicked away as notes were recorded before the attention reverted to the newspapers once more.

That makes sense the woman muttered to herself. But why did he do that? It must be here somewhere. I am close, I know it, but there is a missing piece. What is it?

She had been at it for more than three hours on a gloomy Sunday afternoon that was better spent indoors rather than outside. Without warning, all movement stopped and anyone nearby would have heard the cogs whirring inside her brain and the click of a light switch being turned as everything suddenly fell into place. Not that there was anyone else around, the slimly built, blonde haired woman in her mid thirties was all alone in the library research room.

That’s it she declared loudly.

Normally she would have been chastised for simply talking and as for almost shouting, it would have deserved a severe reprimand. Being the head of the research division for the State Library gave her some leeway and besides she was alone in the vast room. It was closed on Sunday’s and Harriet, or Harri as she was affectionately known, often performed research on this day as she was never interrupted.

She had spent most of the past two weeks scanning old and recent newspapers along with various company reports looking for clues of the whereabouts of a man who had disappeared thirty years ago. Foul play was not suspected but the police believed he had assumed a new identity to escape prosecution for unscrupulous business dealings and defrauding clients of his financial services business.

Normally she would not use her mobile phone in this room as phone calls were banned but as there was no one else in the room, she took the liberty of remaining at the table. The call was answered after a number of rings.

I have found him. He has been clever and has used several disguises over the years but has left a few loops open in recent years. He has become complacent thinking that nobody would still be on the hunt for him.

That is great news Harri. Can you come into the station tomorrow, say around 11am and you can give me a full report.

No, I suggest you come into the Library as I have all the evidence readily available. And you had better come in before 10am as I have to pack everything up before it is open to the public. How about 7am?

Don’t you ever sleep in? Alright, 7am it is but can you prepare a summary in advance, something I can hand to the Commissioner.

Do you ever do any work yourself? Harri said with a cheeky smile that no-one could see.

Thanks Harri, see you tomorrow morning, now go home, you need to get a life.

George hung up. He was a senior detective and had only recently taken on this old case after Harri had pestered him to have it re-opened. It was only because she had help solve a number of previous crimes over the past few years that he reluctantly agreed. Harriet had provided a lot of information but nothing that would stand up in court. Give me absolute proof he had demanded. She now had that proof.

Whilst everything was fresh in