Текст книги "Trail of Greed"

Автор книги: John Dysart

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter 20

The next morning I set off for Stirling to see if I could track down the car I wanted. I was in luck. At the second stop I found just the model I was looking for, second hand but with only ten thousand miles on the clock. It wasn’t the red I had hoped for but I accepted that blue would do. A deal was struck and I drove out of the garage as happy as a sand boy.

Keen to try out my new acquisition I headed out in the direction of Loch Lomond. It was sunny so I had lowered the hood and the long straight road west gave me the chance to feel the wind in my hair and the raunchy power of the engine. I had only driven a few miles before I was completely convinced that I had made a good choice. At the roundabout at the end of the straight I turned up towards Kippen to see how it felt on the corners. She took the narrow twisty road like a dream. No problem.

I had heard that there was a well-known village delicatessen in the main street of Kippen so I pulled over in front of Berits and Brown for a coffee stop. Sitting outside, sipping my espresso in the sun, I thought to myself that life could be worse.

The shop had an interesting selection of wines so I bought half a dozen bottles on the recommendation of the owner to donate to Oliver and Heather. I loaded up the wine, bade farewell to Mr Brown and headed on towards Loch Lomond.

I was back at the farm by lunchtime and announced my intention to go off for a couple of days to try out my new purchase.

Pierre had left to go back to Fife, Mike had gone through to help the guys in Edinburgh and, much to my surprise and delight, Heather had suggested that Sophie stay on for a few days to help her exercise the horses.

Two days of mountain air and the open road would do wonders for my spirits. I gave strict instructions to my brain to entertain no thoughts of AIM, Purdy or Dewar.

I was back in Doune on Thursday – minus the trainers.

Relaxing after lunch I noticed the Edinburgh newspaper lying on the table and started to flick through it. Not much of interest until I came to the financial page. There was an article under the headline ‘AIM boss resigns.’ That interested me.

It was written by Steven and it started: ‘The Board of AIM has announced with regret today the resignation of its founder Alan Purdy for health reasons.’

It then went on to explain how Purdy had started up the company and made it a major player in the investment market. The Board would sorely miss him etc. etc. No real truth in their announcement but a lot of marketing speak. It went on to say that Mr Ian McLeish would take on the role of Managing Director temporarily until the Board found a suitable successor to ‘drive the business forward on the path that Mr Purdy had started’!

What, however, interested me was that I knew Ian McLeish quite well. A couple of jobs back from my retirement he had been one of the partners in the firm that had been our auditors. Knowing what I knew and thinking about the trust fund we had set up I thought it wise to get in touch with him.

I immediately called AIM and asked to be put through to him.

I was greeted like an old friend and we exchanged news about what we had each been up to over the intervening years.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call, Bob?” he asked eventually.

“How are you settling in at AIM?” I asked. “Alright so far. But it’s a funny place. There’s a strange atmosphere here which I didn’t expect and I can’t work out exactly what it is.”

“I think I might be able to help you there,” I said “Are you free tomorrow morning at, let’s say, ten thirty?”

He sounded puzzled but I assured him that it was probably important.

“Have you bumped into a man called Firkin yet?” I asked him.

“No.” “Well, try to find a reason to speak to him and get a feel for what he does before I come. I’ll bring somebody else along and explain everything to you tomorrow.”

He accepted and we hung up. I then got on the phone to Pierre and told him what I’d done and asked him if he would come along with me tomorrow. We agreed that I would pick him up and we’d go through together. I assembled all the paperwork and put it, with a copy of our disk, in my briefcase.

We arrived at the offices of AIM in George Street just in time for our appointment. It was a large smoked-glass building with a fairly discreet entrance. We were informed that AIM was on the second floor and we were shown to the lift. It opened on to a reception area. A welcome desk in the corner was staffed by an attractive receptionist who welcomed us with a chirpy voice. The rest of the floor area had low settees and a couple of glass-topped tables displaying the morning’s financial press and a few copies of the Investor’s Chronicle and other erudite magazines on finance.

The obligatory five-foot high potted plant partly obscured the light from the floor-length window and you had the impression that you could be in any office building in the world. The only identification was the large poster on the wall stating “We AIM to please” which I figured was about as corny as you could get. However, the area did give the impression of successful money which I suppose was the objective.

“Mr McLeish is expecting you. Would you come this way, please?”

We followed the swaying buttocks down the corridor and were shown into what was obviously a meeting room.

“Please take a seat. Would you like some coffee?” “Yes please,” we replied and sat down. The coffee arrived, followed shortly by a portly, balding man in his mid-fifties in shirtsleeves and braces.

“Bob, great to see you,” said Ian. “Retirement looks as if it’s treating you well.”

I introduced Pierre. Ian looked surprised that I had brought along a Frenchman but took it in his stride and we settled down at the table, exchanging a few pleasantries.

I had enjoyed working with Ian and knew him to be a smart, efficient and, more importantly, pragmatic professional. It was this pragmatism that had induced me to come and see him. I asked him what had led to his taking on this assignment.

“Good fees for the firm and a nice change for me,” he replied with a smile.

“So what brings you to see me? Your comments on the phone yesterday sounded very mysterious.” “Did you manage to talk to Firkin?” I asked him. “Yes I did. A slightly strange fish I thought but then I’ve only been a couple of days on the job and the people seem a bit different from what I’m used to.”

“Ian, I don’t know what you’ve found out so far about how things are run here but I think you’ll find that everything is exceedingly compartmentalized with little or no horizontal communication, everything being channelled upwards to, what was, Alan Purdy’s desk and is now yours. Does that make any sense to you?”

“Actually it does. And I was a bit surprised. How do you know that?”

Having thus demonstrated that I had a reasonable insight into the company I launched into my story.

“M. Collard here is an investor in AIM. He deposited a fairly large sum of money with them a few years ago. Several weeks ago he came to me in a state of concern about his investment and asked me if I could help him.”

Ian looked intrigued. “Go on,” he said, settling back more comfortably in his chair. “I’ve a feeling this is going to take a little time.”

He took out a pen, leant over and pulled a pad of paper towards him, hand poised to take notes.

“I don’t know if you’ve had time to look in detail at the figures yet but I’ve come over to tell you that Alan Purdy was running a fraudulent operation here and siphoning off a whole pile of money for himself. And he admitted it to us.”

Ian was now very interested. No great expressions of disbelief or astonishment. Just a nod of his head, acknowledging that he had heard and understood what I had said.

“I’ve brought M. Collard along so that he can confirm everything I am about to tell you.”

Ian turned to Pierre, looked at him and nodded his appreciation.

I then proceeded to recount to him the sequence of events concerning our relationship with Alan Purdy – the conference, Alice and my visit to her, the burglary and how we arrived at the conclusion that we had to do something. I then confessed to our hacking into the company’s systems and explained what we had found.

Ian hadn’t taken any notes. He was concentrating completely on what I said and did not interrupt. He was a good listener and I was sure he was absorbing everything.

As I had brought everything with me, I opened my briefcase and pulled out all our documentation and placed them on the table in front of him.

“That is everything we have concerning the company. There are no other copies.”

He glanced at them. “Do you mind if we stop for a second?” he asked and got up to pour himself another coffee. He came slowly back to the table, his brain obviously sifting through all that it had been asked to absorb, and sat down again.

“In there is the proof of what Pierre originally suspected. Let me show you what it looks like.”

I pulled out the printout of the spreadsheet of one of the funds with its incriminating list including all the commentaries against each name and showed him.

“There are copies of this on this disc,” I said, handing over to him an envelope. “You can sort them into any order to get a better understanding. We sorted them by the level of paid out return and, as you can see, all the ‘negative’ com-mentaries are up at the top with the corresponding low return rates.”

Ian perused the list from top to bottom. And then again. He placed it down on the table in front of him and looked up at us. He was not one of these guys who explode at bad news or who are overly exuberant at good news. He always managed to display an emotional even keel.

“Bob, what you’re telling me is that Alan Purdy was completely illegally ripping off, let’s say, less-advantaged investors and you have here the proof and you obtained this proof by hacking into the company’s systems?”

“That’s a fair summary – but not wholly accurate. I can’t say with certainty that what he was doing was illegal. It was certainly grossly immoral. It’s possible that there are clauses in the contracts concerning levels of management fees for certain types of investments or commissions needing to be paid to people who introduced investors or whatever he could hide behind. What is sure is that it was totally immoral and he personally benefitted to the tune of several millions. He admitted it.”

“He admitted it?”

“Yes.” Ian’s face lost its habitual neutrality. He looked astounded.

“How come he admitted it?” “Don’t ask us the details. Let’s just say that Pierre and I had a conversation with him and showed him that we knew all about what he had been up to. We offered him a way out which he accepted.”

“And what was that? I suppose his resignation has something to do with it?”

I looked at Pierre, who stepped in. “Mr McLeish, I started this all off. I am an investor in AIM and I was suspicious. I asked Bob to help me find out if my suspicions were justified.” Pierre stopped for a moment and took a sip of his now lukewarm coffee and then continued.

“As Bob told you, the conference, the meeting with Alice and the burglary all raised our curiosity. I happen to be a wealthy man and the fact that I was perhaps being defrauded of a few hundred thousand pounds honestly did not worry me too much. That may seem strange to you but it’s true.

“So I organised the hacking into the AIM systems. I know full well it was illegal but I’m perfectly prepared to take full responsibility.

“When we saw what Purdy was doing to elderly, helpless people – look at the comments on these lists – we decided we wanted to do something about it. Bob and I discussed it at length.

“We knew that if we went to the authorities – the police or the financial regulators – it would probably take months of investigation and there was no surety that Purdy would be adequately punished. Don’t forget, we couldn’t produce our proof because that could put us in prison.

“So we decided to take the law into our own hands. I know it’s not very fashionable nowadays but sometimes it is the right thing to do. We met with Purdy and presented him with the evidence and forced him to make reparations and to resign.”

Ian was looking more and more astonished. I could understand his concern. He had just taken over the management of an important company whose chairman had just resigned. His job was to be caretaker for six months or so and hand it over to a new man. He was not going to want to be involved in anything likely to get him in trouble.

“So, what did you do?” he asked.

I took over. “Pierre, let me explain.” “As Pierre said, we had a meeting with Alan Purdy.” I wasn’t about to give the lurid details of masked men, kidnapping, the collapse of Purdy and the relief he showed when he saw his escape route.

“And . . .?”

“He admitted wrongdoing and agreed to set up a trust fund of five million pounds to recompense the people he had defrauded and to resign from AIM.”

I pulled out another file from my briefcase and pushed it across the table. He picked it up and opened it. The first document was the trust agreement, naming Pierre and me as trustees. The second was a bank statement from the Bank of Scotland showing a credit balance of five million pounds.

Ian raised his bushy grey eyebrows and looked at us both, laid the documents carefully on the table in front of him and sat back in his chair.

“I heard that Purdy’s house is up for sale. Apparently he’s leaving the country. Needs warmer weather for health reasons. Is that anything to do with you?”

“Perhaps – indirectly” “So what do you propose I do now?” “We want to transfer the management of the fund over either to you personally or to AIM to manage the correct distribution of the funds to the people that should have had it in the first place.

“I think you’ll find that your auditors are bent. We don’t see how Purdy could have done what he did without sweetening their fees to turn a blind eye. If that’s the case you can persuade them to find a way of getting that money back into the company and out to the investors. You can threaten to get them struck off if they don’t. Once that is done I suggest you change your auditors.”

“Bloody hell! You’re asking me to blackmail the auditors!”

“No. We’re asking you to help to correct a wrong. Purdy has been punished. True, he won’t spend fifteen years in jail which is where he ought to be but he’s out of the way and won’t dare show his face back in the UK again. He still has enough to have a reasonable retirement but nothing like what he had planned. What’s the alternative? If we hadn’t acted Purdy would still be screwing people left, right and centre. If we had tipped off the authorities we’d have got nowhere and the reputation of AIM would have been mud. This way you can repair the damage and clean up AIM before handing it over. You may need to tell your successor but he should see the logic. Anyway he won’t have to worry because nothing will have happened on his watch.”

“No, only on mine!” “Have you got another option?” I asked. Ian was leaning back in his chair. He crossed his hands over his ample stomach and pursed his lips, looking thoughtfully at the documents lying in front of him. There was silence for a couple of minutes.

I was myself wondering if we had been a bit naïve in thinking we could hand over the fund just like that. But it did seem better to me that AIM should manage the process. It was really their money to be distributed and it struck me as more logical that they should control the process. There must be a way they could do it and avoid all the negative publicity that would come from making the whole thing public. It must be in the interest of AIM’s auditors to find a way otherwise they would be obliged to admit collusion in the whole scam.

Ian eventually stirred. “One thing for sure is that I can’t keep this to myself. Some of my colleagues are going to have to know about it. And I’m going to have to understand how he managed to keep it quiet inside the company.”

“My guess,” I replied, “is that he divided things up into very separate functions and didn’t let anyone see the whole picture. I can well imagine him managing to do that. Firkin is probably the only guy that knew anything about it. He could well be the man who fed the comments into the database. These comment boxes are not available to anybody who simply accesses the system. They are protected by a password which our expert managed to crack.”

Ian’s eyebrows shot up. “This expert of yours must know what he’s doing.”

We made no comment. A few more minutes of silence and suddenly Ian galvanized into action. He stood up abruptly and his chair, on its five wheels, went careering off across the room.

“OK. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep all this stuff if you don’t mind. I‘ll have to talk to the board. They are ultimately responsible and I can’t clean this mess up without letting them know what has been going on. This expert of yours – would he be willing to come here to AIM for a week and do a review of our IT systems and “accidentally” discover all that you guys have already discovered? That way the information is officially inside the company and then I can explain to the Board without getting you involved. Once they are aware of the problem they’re going to be shocked. I can then – say, a couple of days later – tell them of your visit which we’ll say took place after our IT review and what it discovered. How’s that?”

It made sense to me. I looked at Pierre. He nodded his agreement.

“Fine,” said Ian. “Where is this expert of yours? Is he in Edinburgh?”

“Our expert is, in fact, a ‘she’,” I replied. “Her name is Sophie Lamarre and she used to work for Pierre in his IT company in France. She now operates as an independent consultant. At the moment she is staying with my sister in Doune.”

“Would she be willing to do this? I’ll put her up in a good hotel in Edinburgh and pay her five grand for a week’s work. The objective is to generate a report that I can present to the Board which explains all this.”

“Pierre, what do you think?” He fished in his pocket for his phone and got through to Sophie straight away. They conversed in French for a few minutes which neither Ian nor I could follow. Then Pierre hung up.

“No problem,” he said. “She can be here on Monday morning and she’ll ask for you.”

“That’s settled then,” replied Ian. “We’ll give your Sophie a week to produce a report. I’ll speak to the Board and we’ll take it from there. You hold on to the trust fund documents but don’t do anything yet about contacting the investors and I’ll call you back in about ten days. OK?”

Business being concluded we got up to go. Ian accompanied us down to the ground floor and we took our leave. He was looking distinctly preoccupied.

Just as we were leaving I suggested to Ian that he be careful about Firkin. “I’m pretty sure he was in on the whole thing,” I warned him.

Pierre and I headed back towards Waverley station to catch our train back to Ladybank where we had left the car.

As the train travelled north, over the bridge and through the countryside of Fife, I told Pierre of the trips I had made as a kid when the trains had been powered by steam. We had revelled in the tradition of lowering the window by its strap as we puffed over the bridge and dutifully throwing the coins that Dad had given us out of the window into the steel grey waters of the Forth. This was supposed to bring us good luck.

We recovered the car, I dropped Pierre off at Fernie Castle and drove back home.

I hadn’t been back since being abducted from the garden and immediately went out to review the scene of the crime. Sure enough, my secateurs and kneeling mat were still there, poignant evidence of the event. I picked them up and stowed them away in the shed.

It had been about ten days since I had been home. The wreck of my car had been cleared away by the insurance people and I looked forward to a couple of days of quiet reading, comfortable in my own home, surrounded by my few, but familiar possessions.