Текст книги "Trail of Greed"

Автор книги: John Dysart

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter 12

The next day, Tuesday, Mike and Sophie turned up for coffee mid-morning. Sophie was full of praise for the Scottish countryside and Mike was like the proverbial cat who had found a dish of cream.

We were able to sit outside and enjoy the warm morning sun. Sophie was bubbling, full of praise for what she had seen and keen to go hiking off into the mountains as soon as she could get the opportunity.

After a while we had exhausted the tourist guide to the Trossachs and Mike asked how things were on the AIM front. Sophie came back down to earth and listened while I explained to them the results of my examination of the files. They were both as horrified and indignant is I had been.

“Bob, we’ve got to do something about this guy,” said Mike. “There is no way he should be allowed to get away with a scam like that.”

“Sure,” I replied, “But don’t forget we can’t use any of this stuff because it would get Sophie into trouble. Hacking in to their systems is a criminal offence. You don’t want her behind bars, do you?”

I then told them what Pierre and I had agreed. I showed them the list of the fourteen people who were prepared to send emails to AIM and explained our reasoning. Mike liked the idea of stirring things up. Sophie was a little more reticent, wondering what it might lead to. After all, Purdy had already shown he was capable of burglary. How much further was he capable of going?

I was able to rustle up a satisfactory lunch and Pierre arrived just as we were finishing. He had brought Sophie’s laptop over and we set it up.

“Here’s what I’ve found,” he said, as he brought up on screen a list of the investments that had been made by each of the three funds.

“I’ve been able to identify all purchases and sales during the year. It’s what you would expect. This fund has been going in and out of various stocks and bonds, presumably programming their positions to sell automatically when any investment hits a predetermined growth figure. They’ve even dabbled a bit in foreign exchange. The net result of all this can be seen at the bottom.”

He pointed to a figure at the top of his list. “This is the value at the beginning of the year. And this . . .”

He moved the cursor down to the bottom. “. . . is the value at the end of the year. I’ve checked some of these values with records from the internet and they are correct. What it says is that this particular fund increased in value over the year by eight point two per cent, which is close to the industry average.”

I powered up my computer and checked the details of the returns AIM had announced to its investors for the same fund. They had credited their investors at various rates, depending on the infamous “comments” column, at rates of between three point four per cent and five point eight. The weighted average, bearing in mind that not everybody had invested the same amount, was three point nine per cent.

“Mon Dieu,” said Sophie, so shocked that she had slipped back into her mother tongue. “Cela fait plus de deux millions!”

Mike tapped her gently on the shoulder.

“Translation, please.” “Oh, sorry. That makes more than two million pounds.”

“Wow.” We then ran a check on the other two funds. AIM had sold their investors short to the tune of four point eight million pounds.

There were a few moments of silence in the room while we all tried to absorb the enormity of what was going on.

I broke the silence. “This needs a bit of thinking about. This is not just a case of someone cooking the books or fiddling their expenses. This is theft on a massive scale. I suggest we reflect for a couple of days and each of us come up with a proposal as to what we should do about it. And don’t forget we can’t use this information without getting arrested ourselves.”

I got up to pace the room and ease my back which was acting up from so much sitting.

At that point the phone rang. It was Doug, asking if Mike was around. I handed him the receiver. He listened attentively for a while then asked Doug if he was now back in Edinburgh.

“OK.” he said. “Call here tomorrow night and update Bob. I won’t be contactable,” and hung up.

He turned towards us with a thoughtful look. He was starting to look concerned.

“Doug has just informed me that the villa in Spain that our friend Dewar went to for the weekend is registered in the name of a Margaret Buchanan.”

“Who’s she?” we asked. Milking the mystery for effect, he went on. “Doug has come back to Edinburgh. He didn’t get the same flight as Dewar, who flew back on Sunday night, because he didn’t want to risk any chance that Dewar would notice him. He flew back this morning and, anticipating that we would want to know who she was, he went hunting and, lo and behold, Margaret Buchanan is none other than . . .”

Sophie broke in.

“Mrs Dewar’s maiden name.” Mike looked hurt. “How did you guess?” “Female intuition, darling,” she said and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.”You’d better get used to it.”

Mike glanced over at me with a look of resignation. Pierre and I shared a laugh at his expense, but he really didn’t seem to mind.

“So this man Dewar is a close buddy of Purdy. They play squash together twice a week and he goes off, presumably regularly, to Spain where he has bought a villa worth several million pounds and registered it in the name of his wife. Sounds like a typical bent French politician,” said Pierre. “And could it be that the money has somehow come from Purdy?”

He left the question hanging in the air – then went on. “Perhaps he knows about Purdy’s girlfriend and is blackmailing him.”

“Or he knows about the scam and is taking a cut,” I added. “One or the other would seem to fit.”

“Right,” said Pierre. “Let’s add that into our reflections and we’ll get together tomorrow and decide on the next steps.”

“Not tomorrow,” said Mike. “I’m afraid we can’t.” He looked at Sophie and took a step towards her. He put a protective arm around her shoulder and announced to us that they were going off for a couple of days – if nobody had any objections.

I pretended to look astonished. Pierre laughed. Sophie blushed and Mike looked combative. I joined in the laughter with Pierre, and Sophie demanded to know what was so funny.

“I’ll tell you when you get back,” I said. “Just make sure you take a camera.”

There was definitely very little brotherly love in the look I got from Mike.

“Are you planning to pop in and see Heather?” I asked innocently.

Mike’s response was to pick up his jacket and say to Sophie, “Come on. It’s time to go before these two old farts really get started.”

The next evening I heard from Doug. He had been continuing to keep an eye on Dewar and had picked up his trail at the squash club where he had known he had his regular court booked with Purdy.

“All I can tell you Bob, is that they had their game and a drink afterwards. I was able to watch them without being able to hear their conversation but there was definitely something fairly serious being discussed. It looked as if Purdy was telling him something important. Dewar was listening most of the time and when they left they gave the impression that they had come to some kind of a decision.”

“Thanks, Doug,” I said. “Can you switch your attention back to Purdy now for a couple of days?”

The Thursday morning sun woke me the next day. I had been fairly late in getting to sleep the previous night with my mind trying to sort out all the news we had learned from the day before.

What we knew for sure was that Purdy was skimming off millions through AIM. That he had a mistress whom he presumably wished to keep secret. That Dewar was clearly a friend of some sort and he had a villa in the south of Spain worth a lot more than he could afford on an MP’s salary and he wanted to keep it quiet because he had registered it in his wife’s name – no paper trail to him.

The question was whether Dewar had got the money from Purdy and whether it was because he was blackmailing him over the mistress or the fraud that he was running at AIM.

It didn’t really matter which. The fundamental question was whether Dewar’s money was coming from Purdy or not.

Then there was the conversation that Doug had observed. I had to consider the fact that, perhaps, Purdy had told Dewar that we were sniffing around AIM. He would have received the emails I had organized and had probably linked them to my question at the conference. Perhaps he had told Dewar of the burglary he had organized to get Alice’s papers.

The scenario seemed perfectly possible but at the moment it was only supposition.

Letham is a small village. It’s really not much more than a hamlet. The main street has houses down one side and stretches up to crossroads at the top. The other side is simply fields, giving a clear view across the Howe to the Lomond Hills about six miles away. There is a school and a post office and about sixty houses. It is quiet and suits me admirably. My cottage, unlike most of the others, has two storeys and is built in large chunks of granite. Half way up the street there is a lane which leads off to the right, past the village bowling green, which sits just behind my garden, and then on up to the farm. My house sits just on the corner.

Almost all the houses are set back from the road, each with its twenty feet of front garden, separated from the road, in most cases, by a low stone wall.

The owners of a good few of the houses have widened their front gates and covered the little bit of garden with gravel and park their cars there. I haven’t. I like the idea of a small piece of cultivation between myself and the road and religiously look after the few rose bushes that make the house much more welcoming. There is little traffic so it is no problem to leave my car in the road. It’s quite safe. One day I’ll get around to building a garage up the lane at the back of the house but that is for the future.

After I had wandered up to the post office to get some milk and exchanged a few words with Mrs McLachlan about the weather I returned home to do what I had asked the others to do – think about the next steps.

I noticed that Pierre had left Sophie’s laptop in the sitting room from yesterday and thought I might as well return it to him. We could have a chat about things while the young ones were probably doing their own planning. I smiled at the thought of Mike being finally hooked. Heather would be pleased.

I took the laptop and went out to the car to go off to Fernie when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to lock the back door. The computer was in a solid protective carrying case so I simply threw it onto the back seat and turned back to the house. I had just opened the door when the blast ripped through the air.

My front door flew back, ripped out of my hand, and crashed open against the inside wall. The explosion of hot air threw me into the house after it. I was flung onto the bottom few steps of my staircase. The unexpectedness of it left me in shock for a moment or two. I struggled to my hands and knees and turned round. My car was not a car anymore. It was a burning mess. Flames were consuming the body work furiously and black smoke was billowing up into the sky.

Once I had ascertained that I was, in fact, unhurt I got gingerly to my feet.

“Good God,” I thought “What the hell was that?” I vaguely registered the fact that I had been bloody lucky. The wall, even although it was low, must have helped to deflect the force of the explosion so that I had not been caught in the full blast. But how had it happened?

It didn’t take too long to eliminate the possibility of some kind of accidental electrical fault. I hadn’t even switched on the ignition. All I had done was to open the door and chuck the laptop onto the back seat and slam the door closed.

That left the only possibility. A bomb. The noise of the explosion had brought the neighbours out. Mrs Clark came rushing out, wearing her baking apron, her hands covered in flour. Everybody was clearly shocked. Not wanting to frighten people unnecessarily I let them bandy their theories around to explain how such a strange accident could happen. I wasn’t going to put forward my theory of a bomb, but undoubtedly that was what it had been.

There was no way the car could be saved but Jack, from two houses up, managed to get a hose speedily rigged up so that we could douse the flames as quickly as possible while his wife, Sally, kept on shouting at him not to get too close in case it blew up again. How it could possibly blow up twice was beyond my imagination. After about half an hour the wreck was reduced to a pile of twisted metal emitting the odd hiss as drips of water met molten steel, lost the battle and were immediately converted into a puff of steam which rose up into the air, mixing itself with the black smoke. The stench of burning rubber added to the hellish scene.

I had remained quite calm throughout the whole circus but when the crowd had dispersed and I went back inside to sit down I suddenly realised I was shaking. Delayed shock I thought to myself and sat down with a stiff whisky to calm myself down.

I was sure it had been a bomb and, if that was the case, I must have been the target. Not funny. I needed a second whisky and also someone with whom to talk it through.

I called Pierre and caught him at the hotel. I asked him to get over as soon as he could. My voice must have sounded urgent because he didn’t even ask why.

“Give me ten minutes,” he said, and, sure enough, he rolled up ten minutes later. He parked up the side road, well away from the wreck, and came slowly round to the front door, a look of total consternation on his face.

He stopped short of the still-smouldering mess of burnt– out steel, his hands on his hips and slowly turned to look at me.

I said nothing but signaled him to come into the house. He dutifully followed me in and accepted the glass I thrust into his hand.

“Somebody, I think, just tried to kill me,” I announced. Pierre doesn’t voice unnecessary comments. He simply sat down and took a sip of my best Bruichladdich.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m sure.”

“Purdy?”

“Who else?”

“Shit!” It was the only explanation. He must have been completely destabilised by the emails. He must have linked them to me. He knew where I lived because he had orgainised the burglary. He had decided I was getting too close to discovering his misdeeds. Had they found out about the hacking and backtracked to Sophie’s computer? I remembered Sophie telling me it was possible and she had done her hacking via my internet connection.

Pierre listened thoughtfully while I voiced my thoughts. “There is another possibility.”

“What?” “How was it set off? It could only have been done by some kind of device which would be tripped off when you got in – which can’t be the case because you’re still here – or, if it was ultra-sensitive, it went off when you threw in Sophie’s laptop.”

He paused. “Or it was set off by someone who was watching and it was the computer that was the target and not you.”

I thought for a second. “True, but I don’t think it makes a lot of difference. The guy has definitely overstepped the mark. We’re going to pull him in.”

“What do you mean?” “I’ve been thinking while I was waiting for you to come over. Either he tried to kill me or he tried to destroy the computer and, therefore, any evidence against him. Whichever doesn’t matter – he needs to be stopped and I can think of only one way of doing it. The police are going to be no help especially as we’d have to tell them about our hacking job.”

“We’ll need Mike, Mac and Doug. Here’s what we’ll do.” I explained and Pierre’s face lit up. “I like it. But we’ll have to wait until Mike and Sophie get back. We can wait a few days. If we do nothing Purdy will think he’s got us off his back and be less on his guard.”

Chapter 13

Mike and Sophie had arrived back the night before. When he called from Forfar I told him about the car bomb. His reaction was immediate.

“We’ll be right over.” He and Sophie arrived within the hour. Both were staggered at the scene of the car. It now looked a very sorry mess of blackened twisted metal. Sophie was very solicitous of my welfare and insisted that I rerun what had happened.

We explained to them how we couldn’t be sure that it was murder they had been attempting or simply the elimination of Sophie’s computer.

“Well I don’t suppose we’ll ever know but it seems to me like the former. Surely Purdy would have realised that we would have made copies of the information.”

“I suppose so,” I replied. “But it doesn’t really matter now. Whichever it was it’s one step too far and, as far as Pierre and I are concerned, we are going to act.”

I then explained to them both what we envisaged. Mike was all for it. Sophie a little less so but, as she couldn’t come up with a better alternative, she went along with us. She had no part to play in the plan but was clearly concerned that we might be opening ourselves up to some unforeseen consequences.

“We’ll use one of the barns at my place,” suggested Mike.

Pierre hadn’t visited Mike’s place yet but I agreed that it would be ideal.

“Pierre and I will come up on Friday evening. Can you put us up?”

Before Mike had a chance to open his mouth, Sophie jumped in “Sure, we can,” she said. Suddenly her hand went up to her mouth, she looked round at Mike, colouring slightly, “er . . . can’t we?”

This little byplay loosened off the tension completely. Mike leant over and put his hand on her thigh affectionately.

“Not much doubt about things now, is there? Of course they can.”

Mike agreed to give his instructions to Mac and Doug and organise their side of the plan.

It was stage managed to frighten him. I wanted him scared because I needed him to crack and own up to what he had done. We couldn’t prosecute. We couldn’t use the information we had but we could bluff him. If I couldn’t put this man behind bars then, at least I wanted him out of action and, if possible, the damage repaired.

We chose the scruffiest of the barns. The two small windows on one wall were filthy, covered with cobwebs, letting in very little light. From the beams of the roof hung a single sixty-watt light bulb giving off just enough light to illuminate the centre of the floor area, leaving the corners in shadow. Around the wall was a variety of old farm implements – old sacks, dusty boxes, an old wooden ladder, a wheel barrow, bits of wood.

I had arranged a big old table at the edge of the lit area behind which we three would sit and I placed a wormeaten, rickety old wooden chair right in the middle about twenty feet in front of it.

We took our places behind the table and indicated to Mac to bring Purdy in. He went out to return shortly with Doug. They had Purdy firmly clasped by the forearms and plumped him unceremoniously onto the chair facing us. Both Mac and Doug were dressed in army fatigues and had their heads covered in black woollen helmets, leaving only their eyes showing. Purdy’s head was enveloped in a dirty old pillow case. His clothes were grubby and disheveled and he was trembling – the antithesis of the smooth confident smiling executive I had first met at the business conference.

I glanced sideways at Mike who was sitting on my left. “Well you said you wanted him scared,” he whispered, with a wicked grin.

I nodded to Doug who whipped off the pillow case and a totally mystified Alan Purdy blinked, shook his head a couple of times and looked around him at the miserable décor in which he found himself.

He then looked at the three of us ranged behind the table in front of him and the pile of documents in front of me. He could see and recognize me clearly as I was within the circle of light. Mike and Pierre were sitting back in the shadow. He could see there were two people but couldn’t see who.

Mike told me afterwards how they had kidnapped him. Mac had an old van that he used for his painting jobs and they had simply parked it in the car park of the squash club. As luck would have it Purdy had left alone after his game and there had been nobody around. It had been very simple to grab him and throw him in the back of the van amongst the ladders and paints. Doug had sat with him keeping him quiet during the journey up to Forfar. Both had played their part perfectly. Not a word during the whole operation. Silence is a great frightener.

They had stashed him in the old cow byre, shackled to an iron ring in the wall with only the floor to sit on. He had had no idea where he was. Doug and Mac had guarded him from outside, peering occasionally in the window, which must have been exceedingly disconcerting to say the least. They had left him a couple of bottles of water and a Mars bar, but that was all.

Now here he was sitting in front of what could only be called a kangaroo court. I’d have been scared stiff.

Not perceiving any immediate physical danger, he visibly pulled himself together. He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him short before he could utter any kind of protest.

“Mr Purdy, I think you know who I am. In fact I know you do, bearing in mind that we crossed swords at your conference a couple of weeks ago and last week you organized a burglary at my home.”

“I know who you are,” he spat at me. “But I don’t know by what right you think you can go snatching people off the street, keep them prisoner and then force them to sit through whatever farce it is you’re planning.”

He was angry and indignant – but still a long way from the point where I wanted him.

“I shall answer that question briefly but I will not enter into a debate on it. First, legally we have no right to do what we are doing. I will accord you that. However, we have decided to take the law into our own hands to correct a situation which the authorities have so far not been able or willing to do anything about.”

He blustered and spluttered, “I demand that you let me go immediately. I shall be contacting the police as soon as possible and I’ll make damned sure that you regret this. You’ll be behind bars before you know where you are. All three of you.”

He tried to get up but Mac and Doug thrust him, none too gently, back onto his chair.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think you would dare go near the police. Before you utter another word I would like to inform you that I have here in front of me documentation which, if the authorities had it in their possession, would very likely result in you spending a considerable part of the next years of your life at, as they say, Her Majesty’s pleasure. You won’t dare go to the police.”

A part of me was rather enjoying this. He glowered at me, his confidence still not yet deflated. “Bullshit.” I looked him straight in the eye, quietly picked up the first document, which consisted of three pages stapled together, and held it up in front of me. I pulled out my reading glasses and slowly put them on.

He didn’t utter a sound but his face started to show slight signs of concern.

“Do you know a Mrs Alice Rutherford?” “Never heard of her.” That’s strange. She told us she has met you several times.” “Never heard of her.” “I have a letter here on Ailsa Investment Management notepaper addressed to this lady. It refers to several meetings with her and is signed ‘yours sincerely, Alan Purdy, Chairman and Managing Director’.”

“I meet hundreds of people in my job. How do you expect me to remember them all?”

“And Mr James MacPhail?” I asked, picking up a second document.

“Who is he?” “You wrote to him on the fourth of September last year.”

He denied knowing any of the next three people I mentioned, each of whom had received letters personally signed by him.

I left a silence hanging in the air waiting until he was the one to break it. I didn’t have to wait long. He must have started to realise that he wasn’t in any physical danger and seemed to take hope from that. His voice almost took on its natural tone.

“Look, what’s all this about? What the hell do you think you’re doing kidnapping me and interrogating me as if I was a criminal?”

I didn’t vouch any reply. Mike and Pierre were still sitting in the shadow. Seen from Purdy’s position it must have been very unnerving. Two hooded men in battle fatigues on either side of him. Two men in the shadows whom he couldn’t make out. A stern interrogator in front of him whom he did know and who had clearly been intent on investigating his fraudulent operations. All of this in the dingiest of settings. I didn’t envy him one bit. And I didn’t have any sympathy for him either. When I thought of the money he had stolen and the types of people who were his prey I warmed to my task.

We sat and coldly watched a man who had systematically robbed a few hundred people just for pure financial gain. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the power his position gave him was the food that nourished the complete disregard he had exhibited towards his victims.

Pierre had lost money but he could afford it. The others had put their trust and lifetime savings into his hands, bamboozled by the inviting publicity, the dishonest marketing and the sweet talk. They had each been taken in by the image of the all-successful businessman and had lost thousands.

When we had started to probe and he saw that there was danger, ego had kidnapped his reason and he had slipped over the edge into criminal activity to protect his ill-gotten gains and his status.

“Mr Purdy, do you deny that you have embezzled important sums of money from hundreds of people who entrusted their money to your care?”

He looked up at us, as if astonished. “You’re damn right I do.” Here we had in front of us a perfect example of the much-vaunted modern financial services industry. A man of no morals who had realised that the technological advances that have made life nowadays so complicated for the average person had opened up all kinds of new ways for crime – or financial theft – in ways that were becoming more and more difficult to detect.

I couldn’t help thinking that the criminal of yesterday who wanted to steal money had had to knock an old man off his bicycle and steal his wallet, or personally go into a bank or a post office and threaten everyone to get at the money in the safe. Whilst I in no way condone such behaviour at least they had had to have a certain degree of courage to acquire their loot. Nowadays they can hide behind a computer screen, miles away, or even in another continent, and steal in almost perfect tranquility, while munching a packet of crisps and sipping a cup of coffee.

“Mr Purdy, we have estimated that you have stolen from the gentleman here on my right approximately two hundred thousand pounds. You have also stolen several million pounds from most of the investors in the AIM funds. These documents that I have in front me can prove this if you don’t agree with us.

“Thanks to your rapacious conduct you have made yourself an exceedingly wealthy man. We know. We have access to your computer systems.”

“Hacking into a company’s computer systems is a criminal offence,” he barked at me. “I’ll have you jailed.”

“Shut up and listen to what he has to say, you little piece of shit,” said Mike, his voice coming out of the shadows. I could feel Mike was barely able to contain himself from going over and knocking the hell out of him.

I picked up the top sheet of paper from the pile in front of me.

“Alan Vesty, invested £80,000, ex-banker, sixty-nine years old. There is a commentary box here at the bottom in which it says ‘Careful’.

I picked up another one at random from the pile. “Keith Dalgleish, invested £150,000, ex-sales director, seventy-four years old. In the commentary box it says ‘Went into retirement home in 2007, no known relatives, no problem’.

“Next one, ‘Ethel Neale, invested £180,000, eighty years old, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2009, no problem’.

“‘David Stevenson, seventy-six years old, invested £90,000, No knowledge, treat as normal’.”

I looked up at him. His face had lost all colour. He was visibly shocked and starting to sweat. He was frantically looking around for some means of escape. He certainly didn’t want to sit there and listen to a litany of his crimes.

“Do I need to go on?” I leant forward and picked up another piece of paper from the second pile on the table.

“This document details the investments made by AIM over the last three years with the dividends and the capital gains that were realised. The medium risk fund has averaged a return of nine per cent. You have passed on to your investors only three point nine per cent. You must have realised when I asked that question at the conference that you were in danger. You then organized a burglary at my house to steal the papers that Alice Rutherford had given me.”

He was really under pressure now. He tried again to get up but Mac and Doug held him fast.

“You can’t use that stuff. There’s no way you can prove anything,” he cried desperately.

“We are quite happy to hand ourselves in – with all of this – if you do not do what we want.” I waved my hand over all the documents lying on the table in front of me. “I don’t think a jury would convict. We have done nothing for personal gain – only to unmask an enormous fraud.”

“You’re bluffing.” “Try us. We will give you five minutes to reflect on the position you’re in and then we’ll tell you what we want. Put his hood back on lads and keep an eye on him.”

Once he was blind again we got up and went outside, leaving him to think. A strangled cry of “You bastards!” followed us out.